After months of headlines about an increase in the cost of living there is finally good news for anyone who is looking for a new job.
Job site Seek released its Advertised Salary Index which shows pay advertised for new jobs in Australia grew by 4.1 per cent in the last 12 months.
Design and Architecture roles have experienced the highest growth, with a 7.3 per cent wage increase. But Science and Technology jobs rose 0.6 per cent.
Other sectors that were slow to grow include:
- Government wages at 1.4 per cent
- Education and Training wages at 1.6 per cent
- Healthcare and Medical wages at 2.4 per cent
But advertised salaries have grown across all salary bands.
Low-paid jobs ($63,000 or less) have seen a 4.4 per cent increase in advertised wages – the second-highest increase across the board.
2022 wage increases by salary bands
It wasn’t just across different job sectors or salary bands where the growth drastically changed. Different states also saw different rates of wage growth.
The Northern Territory also saw the highest wage growth at five per cent, while the ACT’s salaries grew just 1.8%
2022 wage increases by state or territory
Ivan Colhoun, Chief Economist, Corporate and Institutional Banking at National Australia Bank, says the increase in salaries comes down to closed borders.
“Significantly, the border has been closed for two years until early 2022. The large numbers of people that usually come to Australia every year haven’t been coming during that time and it’s also been hard to get workers from interstate.”
On one bright side for Canberrans, Seek’s data showed the ACT had the highest average salaries in the country at just over $100,000.
Meanwhile, Tasmanians and South Australians feel the pinch the most, with lowest average advertised salaries at around $80,000.
In June, recruitment company Hays published its annual Hays Salary Guide. It shows 88 per cent of employers intend to increase salaries in their next review. That is up from 67 per cent.
The report also shows 37 per cent of employers plan to increase wages by 3 per cent or more.
Similar to what Colhoun reported, 77 per cent of employers surveyed by Hays cited skills shortages as the reason salaries have been increased.
“Moving away from the salary stability stance of recent years, employers say the skills shortage is the reason increases are higher than planned,” says Nick Delegiannis, Managing Director of Hays in Australia and New Zealand. “Already 91 per cent are experiencing a skills shortage.”
Hays is also expecting the most in-demand jobs of tomorrow to be in the IT sector, with recruiters looking for Blockchain developers, UX designers, IoT engineers, Software engineers, Robotics engineers, Cloud engineers, Data scientists, Machine learning engineers, Mobile application developers, IAM engineers, DevSecOps engineers and AppSec engineers.
Robert Beckley, Regional Director at Hays says: “If you’re planning your IT career path, maintaining a view of the skills employers will need in the years ahead will help shape your upskilling plan and future-proof your employability.”