Australian Bureau of Statistics

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The remuneration paid to employees for their work is of interest from both social and economic perspectives: in terms of income received by employees and the cost of labour for employers. The ABS produces a range of statistics on employee remuneration, and these are widely used by policy makers, researchers and others in the community.

Changes in the nature of employee remuneration in recent years have led to the need to review ABS measures of employee remuneration, to ensure that the conceptual basis of the measures is still sound. Of particular interest has been the increase in use of salary sacrifice arrangements, where pre-tax salary is exchanged for other benefits.

This paper presents the conceptual basis for the range of ABS measures of employee remuneration, and the outcomes of the review, including changes proposed for some ABS statistical series.