Salary trends a mixed picture



By Kate Southam, Editor

The employment market is picking up along with salaries but with mixed fortunes. Separate surveys predict increasing salaries for specific trades, ICT and white collar workers.

The recently released June quarter Clarius Skills Index reveals a growing skill shortage in eight of the 20 occupations its measures with a further two on the cusp of a shortfall.

Prepared by KPMG Econtech, the index show shortages of skilled building and engineering professionals, “computing” professionals (ICT), chefs, metal trades professionals and automotive, construction and wood trades people.

Clarius predicts skilled labour shortages will drive a 5.4 per cent annual increase in earnings over the next three years for workers in these sectors and see unemployment rates drop below five per cent by early 2011. The national wage increase for the June quarter was 5.1 per cent.

According to Clarius the average annual earnings would rise by $8,200 in the next three years.

Specialist technical recruiter South Tech says an increasing number of construction projects had driven up demand for staff and therefore wages.

“In this market the right kind of employee can start asking for increases in their pay packet,” says Philip Desmet, executive general manager of South Tech.

White collar

Speaking to The Australian this week ICT specialist recruitment consultants from Hays IT, Professional Recruitment Australia, Peoplebank, Clicks IT Recruitment and Michael Page Technology forecast a shortage of IT professionals in coming months.

One ICT business analyst said he had noticed a spike in rates for his role after taking some time out. He said he had seen day rates of $650 to $750 for business analysts with up to seven years experience and $550 to $650 a day for technical analysts.

The Michael Page Salary and Employment Forecast surveyed 800 senior managers and found 40 per cent were planning to reward staff with pay rises in the next six months.

Of those, about two thirds expect to award increases of only two to five per cent despite some white collar workers being known “flight risks”. Most of these reviews will take place in “back office” roles such as human resources, accounting, marketing and information technology.

Good talent can expect to bag pay increases of between five and 10 per cent if they move jobs, according to Michael Page.

Regional managing director of Michael Page Australia and New Zealand Phillip Guest says while economic conditions have improved many employers were still very much focused on the bottom line and containing costs.

“While most employers are aware they risk losing top performers if salaries are not increased, they have to consider their capacity to absorb escalating payroll costs during the early stages of an upturn,” Guest says.

Alliance recruitment says improving economic conditions had seen a serious spike in the salary expectations of talent in the insurance broking and financial planning field.

Some candidates expect up to a 30 per cent salary increase to change jobs right now.

“While blue-ribbon firms are able to sustain these high salaries, medium to low-tier firms cannot and thus are more inflexible in responding to candidate wage expectations,” says Paul Barbaro, executive general manager of Alliance Recruitment.

CareerOne.com.au, July 27, 2010.