Characteristics of Employment, Australia

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Data download

Weekly earnings of employees classified by full-time/part-time workers, employment characteristics, fixed-term/independent contracts

Reference period
August 2020
Released
11/12/2020

Key statistics

  • Median employee earnings have increased $50 (4.5%) to $1,150 per week since Aug 2019.
  • 2.3 million casual employees (22% of employees), down from 2.6 million (24%) in Feb 2020.
  • 1.0 million independent contractors (8.2% of employment).
  • 14.3% of employees (1 million) were trade union members, down from 40% in 1992.

From August 2020, statistics from the Characteristics of Employment survey are now published in three topic-based releases. See:

Characteristics of Employment data for 2014 to 2020 will be available in TableBuilder from 16 December 2020. TableBuilder enables the creation of customised tables and graphs.

Data downloads

These Characteristics of Employment spreadsheets are also available in the Data downloads section of the relevant Employee earnings, Working arrangements and Trade union membership releases.

Table 1a - Median earnings for employees by sex, state and full-time or part-time, 2004–2020

Table 1b - Median earnings for employees by sex, state and status of employment, 2004–2020

Table 1c - Median earnings for employees by state, full-time or part-time and status of employment, 2004–2020

Table 1d - Median earnings by full-time or part-time, state and trade union members in main job, 2004–2020

Table 2 - Median earnings for employees by demographic characteristics and full-time or part-time

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6333.0*.

Prior to 2014, statistics related to employee earnings, trade union membership and working arrangements were published in:

 

*Note: Catalogue number 6333.0 was previously used for Working Conditions, Australia (Preliminary), Feb to May 1979.