6302.0 - Average Weekly Earnings, Australia, Nov 2014 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 26/02/2015   
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AVERAGE WEEKLY CASH EARNINGS

The Average Weekly Cash Earnings (AWCE) series is important because it reflects employee earnings including amounts salary sacrificed. Amounts salary sacrificed can vary from period to period and impact on the interpretation of movements presented in the other sections of this e-magazine.

Salary sacrifice is defined as an arrangement where an employee agrees to forgo part of his or her salary in return for benefits of a similar value. Common types of salary sacrifice arrangements include pre-tax contributions to superannuation funds and novated leases for motor vehicles.

Graph Image for Average Weekly Ordinary Time Cash Earnings, Full Time Adults, Original


In November 2014, on average, full-time adult employees in Australia salary sacrificed $51.40 (Full-time adult ordinary time cash earnings $1,528.40 minus Full-time adult ordinary time earnings $1,477.00). This is an increase of $3.00 from May 2014.

Amounts salary sacrificed by an employee can be affected by a change in his or her earnings (for example, an increase in the level of overtime worked or commissions earned). Additionally, some employees sacrifice more of their salary at the beginning of the financial year and then the amount tapers off towards the end of the year when he or she has reached the concessional contributions cap for salary sacrificing superannuation. For other employees, the amount of salary sacrificed increases towards the end of the financial year to ensure the cap is reached. A feature article examining Salary Sacrifice in Australia was included in the November 2012 edition of the Average Weekly Earnings release and can be found in the following link.

For further earnings information related to Average Weekly Cash Earnings, please refer to the time series spreadsheets in the following link or click on the downloads tab at the top of the page.