6305.0 - Employee Earnings and Hours, Australia, Preliminary, May 2002  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 10/12/2002   
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MEDIA RELEASE

December 10, 2002
Embargoed 11:30am (AEST)
176/2002

Four out of five employees have pay set by individual or collective agreement

In May 2002, four out of five employees had their pay set either by an individual agreement (42%) or a collective agreement (37%), according to preliminary results from the Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The other 21% of employees had their pay set at the award rate without reference to an individual or collective agreement.

Individual agreements and collective agreements were most prevalent in the higher skilled occupation groups, such as Managers and administrators (almost 100% of employees in this group in May 2002), Professionals (92% of employees) and Associate professionals (93%).

For the lower skilled occupation groups, such as Elementary clerical, sales and service workers and Labourers and related workers, a relatively high proportion of employees had their pay set at the award rate without reference to individual or collective agreements (42% and 34% respectively).

More than half (51%) of all private sector employees had their pay set by individual agreements. The other half were evenly split between those whose pay was set at the award rate (25%) and those whose pay was set by collective agreements (24%). Collective agreements set the pay for the majority of public sector employees (89%).

Other findings from the survey include:
  • Average weekly total earnings for full-time adult employees was $897 in May 2002, an increase of 7.1% since May 2000.
  • Average weekly total earnings for managerial full-time adult employees was $1168 in May 2002, which was 38% higher than for non-managerial full-time adult employees ($849).
  • Average weekly ordinary-time earnings of non-managerial full-time adult employees was $839 for males and $748 for females.
  • Occupation groups with the highest average weekly total earnings for full-time adult employees were Managers and administrators ($1466) and Professionals ($1049); occupation groups with the lowest earnings were Elementary clerical, sales and service workers ($628) and Labourers and related workers ($718).

Further details are available in Employee Earnings and Hours, Australia, Preliminary, May 2002 (cat. no. 6305.0).