SEEK Advertised Salary Index - 4.4% rise year-on-year in January
NATIONAL ADVERTISED SALARY TRENDS
- Advertised salaries on SEEK in Australia rose by 4.4% in the year to January 2023.
- This relatively fast advertised salary growth is slightly lower than the year to December 2022 (4.6%).
- Month-on-month (m/m) growth in the SEEK Advertised Salary Index (ASI) has fallen for two consecutive months.
STATE ADVERTISED SALARY TRENDS
- Tasmania recorded the fastest growth in advertised salaries in the year to January 2023 (6.4%).
- The ACT continued to have the slowest growth in advertised salaries (3.1%), but a pick-up in public sector advertised salaries has reduced the gap between the ACT and other states and territories.
INDUSTRY ADVERTISED SALARY TRENDS
- Trades & Services (6.3%) and Design & Architecture (6.2%) recorded the fastest growth in advertised salaries in the year to January 2023.
- Legal (0.4%) and Consulting & Strategy (0.6%) experienced the slowest advertised salary growth.
- Government, and a range of other industries with heavy public sector involvement such as Healthcare & Medical and Education & Training, has seen faster advertised salary growth in recent months.
ANALYSIS
- Over the past year, rapid growth in advertised salaries has become less common across the sub-industries, with a broader range of job-types now running at more moderate levels.
SEEK Senior Economist, Matt Cowgill, says:
“Advertised salary growth is still strong, but there are signs we might have seen the peak.
“The rate of month-on-month growth in advertised salaries has fallen for two consecutive months and was a relatively anaemic 0.2% in January. This moderation in advertised salary growth echoes some other labour market indicators, such as the unemployment rate and job ad volumes. However, the labour market is still very tight, just not as tight as it was a few months ago.
“Although growth in advertised salaries remains strong, at 4.4% it’s still well behind the 7.75% inflation rate. That means real, inflation-adjusted advertised salaries are falling, adding to the cost-of-living squeeze on Australian workers.
“Advertised salaries continue to grow faster than overall wages and salaries, suggesting that employers are still in a bidding war for talent and so changing jobs is still a good way to get a pay rise for those feeling the pinch.
“The fact that advertised salary growth hasn’t continued to accelerate beyond the current level of growth is good news for inflation as we don’t see signs of a price-wage spiral in the data.”
NATIONAL ADVERTISED SALARY TRENDS
Australian advertised salaries on SEEK were 4.4% higher in January 2023 than a year earlier in January 2022. This is a slight fall from the annual growth in the year to December 2022, during which advertised salaries grew by 4.6%. Since late 2021, advertised salary growth has mostly been in the low-to-mid 4% range, with a brief dip below 4% in August and September 2022.
The growth in advertised salaries reflects strong demand for workers, a rising cost of living that is pushing up employees’ expectations for salary growth, and a larger than normal increase in the National Minimum Wage and award wages in 2022. Although labour market conditions show signs of softening, with job ads moderating in the second half of 2022 and unemployment rising slightly, it still remains very tight by historical standards, and advertised salary growth reflects this.
Figure 1: Annual growth of SEEK ASI
Note: Seasonally adjusted. Source: SEEK.
Advertised salaries grew by just 0.2% in January m/m. Growth in advertised salaries has slowed for two consecutive months, which suggests that we may soon see the annual growth rate decline. This data is seasonally adjusted, so these changes should not reflect the normal effect of the holiday period.
Figure 2: Monthly growth of SEEK ASI
Note: Seasonally adjusted. Source: SEEK.
The slowdown in the SEEK ASI monthly growth rates in recent months coincides with a softening in some other labour market indicators, including the unemployment rate, which rose from 3.5% to 3.7% in January.
STATE ADVERTISED SALARY TRENDS
Not all states and territories have experienced the same advertised salary growth over the past year. Tasmania saw rapid growth, with advertised salaries up 6.4% in the year to January. The Australian Capital Territory lagged behind the rest of the nation at 3.1%. The biggest states saw growth in the low-4s, with New South Wales at 4.2% and Victoria at 4.1% over the year.
Although there are still large gaps between the fastest and slowest-growing states and territories, the gap has narrowed. Advertised salary growth in the ACT has picked up in recent months, partly driven by the pick-up in advertised salary growth in the public sector.
South Australia, too, saw advertised salary growth increase in the second half of 2022. After falling behind most other states in late 2021 and early 2022, the advertised salary growth of 4.0% in the year to January 2023 is around the same as in Victoria. Growth in the Northern Territory has moderated.
Figure 3: Annual growth in SEEK Advertised Salary Index by State/territory over time
Note: Seasonally adjusted. Source: SEEK.
INDUSTRY ADVERTISED SALARY TRENDS
The fastest advertised salary growth in the year to January was recorded in Trades & Services, a broad industry that encompasses Butchers, Floristry, Hair & Beauty Services and a range of other roles. The SEEK ASI in this industry grew by 6.3% in the year to January. The Design & Architecture industry was close behind in second place, with 6.2% advertised salary growth over the year.
Advertised salary growth in the public sector, in industries such as Government, Healthcare & Medicare, and Education & Training, has picked up, with these industries no longer towards the bottom of the list. Jobs in the Legal and Consulting & Strategy industries saw the slowest growth in advertised salaries in the year to January, at 0.4% and 0.6% respectively.
Table 2: SEEK Advertised Salary Index growth by industry
ANALYSIS: RAPID SALARY GROWTH LESS WIDESPREAD
In mid-2022, relatively rapid advertised salary growth was broad-based across different types of jobs. In June 2022, 69% of SEEK’s subclassifications – our high-level occupation categories – were experiencing advertised salary growth of 3% or greater, while 56% of subclassifications were at or above 4% advertised salary growth.
These figures have started to normalise. In the year to January 2023, 56% of industry subclassifications (a decline of 13 percentage points) saw advertised salary growth of 3% or more, with 44% at 4% or more (a decline of 12 percentage points).
This is still more wide-spread, broad-based growth in advertised salaries than we saw before COVID. But as the labour market has started to cool, rapid advertised salary growth has become somewhat less common, with a broader range of job-types running at more moderate levels.
Figure 4: Proportion of subclassifications experiencing rapid annual advertised salary growth
Note: There are 348 industry subclassifications in the data. Not seasonally adjusted. Source: SEEK
– Notes –
When reporting SEEK data, we request that you attribute SEEK as the source and refer to SEEK as an employment marketplace.
Commentary relating to the SEEK ASI can be attributed to Matt Cowgill, SEEK Senior Economist.
About the SEEK ASI
The SEEK ASI measures the change in advertised salaries over time for jobs posted on SEEK in Australia, removing much of the effect of compositional change. The SEEK ASI is a complement to existing data about the growth in wages and salaries in Australia, including the ABS Wage Price Index (WPI). The WPI is a measure of the pace of wages growth across the economy, for jobs that are currently occupied. The SEEK ASI provides a timely and frequent read on the pulse of advertised salary growth in Australia for vacant roles.
More information about how the SEEK ASI is put together can be found here. The data for the SEEK ASI can be found here.
Disclaimer
The Data should be viewed and regarded as standalone information and should not be aggregated with any other information whether such information has been previously provided by SEEK Limited, ("SEEK"). The Data is given in summary form and whilst care has been taken in its preparation, SEEK makes no representations whatsoever about its completeness or accuracy. SEEK expressly bears no responsibility or liability for any reliance placed by you on the Data, or from the use of the Data by you. If you have received this message in error, please notify the sender immediately.
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