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Today’s release of the Sept 2019 Labour Account data series provides a wealth of information. One thing it allows us to do is take a look at incomes across various industry sectors and how they have changed in the past 12 months. The table below shows, for selected industries, the year-on-year changes in the average hourly income per employed person, the average number of hours actually worked per employed person, and the resultant average income per employed person.
| Industry | Avg Hourly Income % y/y |
Avg Hours Worked % y/y |
Avg Income % y/y |
| Retail | 5.9 | -0.3 | 5.55 |
| Public Admin | 5.3 | -0.3 | 5.02 |
| Healthcare | 0.9 | 1.8 | 2.68 |
| Construction | -0.6 | 0.0 | -0.60 |
| Education | 0.6 | -0.2 | 0.44 |
| Accomm & Food | 2.7 | 0.0 | 2.71 |
| Manufacturing | 1.1 | -0.5 | 0.62 |
| Mining | 0.5 | -2.8 | -2.25 |
| ALL | 2.0 | -0.3 | 1.75 |
Across all industries average hourly income rose by 2.0% but the average number of hours fell 0.3% resulting in an increase in average income of just 1.75% (in line with CPI). This is the fastest pace of grwoth since the second quarter 2015.
There are marked differences between sectors with some seeing hourly rate increases driving healthy income rises (e.g. Retail and Public Admin), those where modest hourly rate rises were coupled with increases in hours worked to give a reasonable income increase (Healthcare) and those where modest, or even falling, rate increases coupled with static or declinign hours results in very weak income growth (Construction and Mining).
The breakdown of industry average incomes, combined with total numbers employed in each industry sector, allow us to analysis the industry sectors’ contribution to total average income growth. Major positive contributions to total average income growth came from Retail (which added 0.5 ppts on the back of a 5.5% y/y increase in incomes), Professional Services (which added 0.45 ppts) and Admin Services (which added 0.38 ppts). Agriculture deducted 0.32 ppts while Other Services deducted another 0.29 ppts.
By using industry employment data from the Conus Industry Employment Trend for the Queensland regions and calculating the relative size of industry employment across sectors and regions, we can estimate the industry sector impact on income changes at a regional level to provide a measure of total average income growth for each SA4. What this analysis shows us is that average incomes in Queensland are estimated to have increased at 1.50% (slower than the national average) with Greater Brisbane at 1.92% (best result since Q1 2015) and the Rest of Queensland at 1.08%. All regions outside SEQ saw average incomes rise much slower than inflation with many of them suffering declines in average incomes.
| Average Income y/y Sept 2019 | |
| Australia | 1.75 |
| Queensland | 1.50 |
| Greater Brisbane | 1.92 |
| Brisbane – East | 1.73 |
| Brisbane – North | 2.32 |
| Brisbane – South | 2.28 |
| Brisbane – West | 1.94 |
| Brisbane – Inner City | 2.30 |
| Ipswich | 1.73 |
| Logan – Beaudesert | 1.37 |
| Moreton Bay – North | 1.45 |
| Moreton Bay – South | 1.95 |
| Rest of Qld | 1.08 |
| Cairns | 1.10 |
| Darling Downs – Maranoa | -1.04 |
| Central | -0.30 |
| Gold Coast | 1.89 |
| Mackay | 0.67 |
| Qld – Outback | -1.31 |
| Sunshine Coast | 1.36 |
| Toowoomba | 1.42 |
| Townsville | 1.62 |
| Wide Bay | 1.23 |
Townsville has performed relatively well (+1.62%) mainly due to relative under-representation in the Other Services sectors where average incomes fell as well as a slightly higher representation in the Retail sector where incomes rose quite strongly.
Darling Downs-Maranoa did much worse than average mainly due to high representation in the weak Agricutlure sector as well as under-representation in the Professional Services sector.
{The Labour Account average income data is for quarters ending in March, June, Sept and Dec whereas the Labour Force Detailed Quarterly is for quarters ending in Feb, May, Aug and Nov. Nevertheless, the difference in relative employment representation (particularly when seen on a Trend basis) is likely to be minimal.
Actual income data at the regional level is not available. Therefore, the derived changes assume that income changes across industry sectors are common across regions. Differences across regions in average incomes are due to variations in the industry make-up of the employment in those regions.}
Further details on the regional income data by industry is available by contacting Pete.
We are proud to have CBC Staff Selection as supporters of the Conus/CBC Staff Selection Trend Employment and Jobseeker data series