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NAME OF COLLECTION
Employee Earnings and Hours, Survey of

Contact
Manager
Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours
Australian Bureau of Statistics
GPO Box K881
PERTH WA 6842

Telephone: Perth 08 9360 5305
Facsimile: Perth 08 9360 5954
Email: client.services@abs.gov.au
Web site: <www.abs.gov.au>

Purpose
The Survey of Employee Earnings and Hours is a sample survey of employers conducted in May of each second year (from May 1996). The survey is designed to provide statistics on the composition and distribution of earnings and hours of employees and whether their pay is set by award only, collective agreement or individual agreement.

Results from the survey are used by commonwealth and state government departments, employer associations, and trade unions in developing and reviewing wages and labour market policies and in the wage negotiating process.

Description
The survey is based on a two stage sample design. The first stage involves selecting a sample of employers from the ABS register of businesses. The statistical unit for the survey comprises all activities of an employer in a particular state or territory. Each statistical unit is classified to an industry which reflects the predominant activity of the employer in the state or territory. The statistical units are stratified by state, sector, industry, and employment size, and a simple random sample is selected from each stratum.

The second stage involves those employers selecting a sample of employees using sampling instructions provided by the ABS. The reported data were then used to produce estimates of earnings, hours and methods of setting pay. Data for approximately 53,000 employees from a sample of 7,000 employers contributed to the results of the May 2000 survey.

All wage and salary earners who received pay for the reference period are represented in the survey, except certain categories of employees (e.g. members of the Australian permanent defence forces and employees of enterprises primarily engaged in agriculture, forestry and fishing).

In addition, certain categories of persons who are not regarded as employees for the purposes of this survey are excluded (e.g. directors who are not paid a salary and proprietors/partners of unincorporated businesses).

Main data detail
Subject to the reliability of the estimates, some of the data items which may be available about various categories of mining industry employees are:

• sex;
• occupation;
• average weekly ordinary time base pay;
• average weekly ordinary time payment by measured result;
• average weekly ordinary time earnings;
• average weekly overtime earnings;
• average weekly total earnings;
• average weekly ordinary time hours paid for;
• average weekly overtime hours paid for;
• average weekly total hours paid for;
• distribution of employees by levels of weekly total earnings;
• methods of setting pay; and
• methods of setting pay - jurisdiction.

Frequency of data availability

Two-yearly.

Reference period
May.

Historical data
The collection began in 1974 and was conducted annually until 1981, when a decision was made to continue the survey on a two-yearly basis. As a result, no survey was run in 1982 or 1984. However, the survey was conducted annually from 1986 to 1996, when it reverted to a two-yearly collection. Consequently, a survey was undertaken in 1998 and 2000.

Data in electronic form are available from 1983, while data for the surveys conducted prior to 1983 are only available from publications. A break in the series exists between 1985 and 1986 due to the introduction of the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations (ASCO) to replace the Classification and Classified List of Occupations. Occupation data for 1996 was coded using both the first and second editions of the Australian Standard Classification of Occupations. From 1998 onwards occupation data is coded to Australian Standard Classification of Occupations, second edition.

Products and services
Publications

• Employee Earnings and Hours Australia (cat. no. 6306.0)
• Employee Earnings and Hours, Australia, Preliminary (cat. no. 6305.0)

• Special data services are available on request.

		Males $	Females $	Persons $
Full-time employees
	Managerial adult	1,724.10	*949.40	1,669.00
	Non-managerial adult	1,380.90	937.60	1,331.60
	Non-managerial junior	529.10	n.p.	511.20
	Total non-managerial	1,375.50	933.10	1,326.20
	Total adult	1,407.60	938.20	1,356.80
	All full-time employees	1,402.50	933.90	1,351.70
Part-time employees		354.90	484.40	411.80
All employees		1,386.20	892.40	1,328.70