Postings also up slightly in December, report shows
Advertised salaries in Australia went up year-on-year to outpace the country's inflation rate.
The latest SEEK Advertised Salary Index (ASI) revealed a 4.5% growth in the year to December, the same as the year to November.
Matt Cowgill, SEEK senior economist, said this shows advertised salaries are rising faster than prices again.
"After a long period of declining real wages, the SEEK ASI is now rising in real terms again, with 4.5% advertised salary growth outpacing inflation at 4.3%," Cowgill said in a media release.
Australia's inflation recently slowed to 4.3% in the 12 months to November 2023, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
This is down from the 4.9% in October and is the smallest annual increase since January 2022, ABS said.
By quarter, advertised salaries went up 0.9% in the final quarter of 2023, while increasing 0.3% in October, November, and December 20203.
"Although this is solid growth, it's a clear slowdown from the previous quarter, when Fair Work Commission decisions delivered a bump to wages growth," Cowgill said.
Job ads up
Meanwhile, SEEK also revealed that national job ads went up 0.5% month-on-month in December 2023.
Despite this increase, December's national job ads were down -17.4% when compared with the same period in 2022.
By location, Tasmania saw the highest monthly increase in job ads with 5.6%. Other states that registered an increase include:
- Northern Territory (1.6%)
- Queensland (0.7%)
- New South Wales (0.4%)
- Western Australia (0.2%)
Locations that saw a decrease in job ads include the Australian Capital Territory (-2.5%), Victoria (-1.7%), and South Australia (-0.9%).
The hospitality and tourism industry saw the biggest monthly increase in job ads with 3.7%, while the education and training industry logged the biggest decline with -3.5%.
With national job ads only slightly increasing monthly, applications for job ads monthly went up by six per cent, the report said.
