6310.0 - Employee Earnings, Benefits and Trade Union Membership, Australia, Aug 2002  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 31/03/2003   
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MEDIA RELEASE

March 31, 2003
Embargoed 11:30am (AEST)
32/2003

Employee earnings increase 3% over last 12 months

Average weekly earnings for all employees was $707 in August 2002, an increase of 3% since August 2001, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Full-time workers, who were employees in their main job in August 2002, earned on average $863 per week in all jobs. This was an increase of 3% since August 2001. Mean weekly earnings were $921 for male full-time workers and $760 for female full-time workers in August 2002.

Part-time workers, who were employees in their main job in August 2002, earned on average $320 per week in all jobs. This represented an increase of 4% since August 2001. Mean weekly earnings were $308 for male part-time workers and $325 for female part-time workers.

In August 2002, 92% of employees were entitled to standard benefits in their main job. The most commonly reported benefits were superannuation (90% of employees), paid sick leave (72%), paid holiday leave (71%) and long service leave (63%).

The proportion of employees in August 2002 who were entitled to either paid sick leave, paid holiday leave or both in their main job (73%) was the same as in the previous two years. A higher proportion of full-time employees (87%) had paid leave entitlements compared with part-time employees (40%) in 2002.

There were 1,833,700 trade union members in August 2002, a 3.6% decrease since August 2001. In this period, the proportion of employees who were trade union members fell from 24.5% to 23.1%.

Further information is in Employee Earnings, Benefits and Trade Union Membership, Australia, August 2002 (cat. no. 6310.0).