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Characteristics of Employment, Australia

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Weekly earnings of employees, casual workers, independent contractors, trade union membership, labour hire, job flexibility, job security

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Reference period
August 2022
Released
14/12/2022
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Key statistics

In August 2022:

  • Median employee earnings was $1,250 per week, an increase of $50 since August 2021 (4.2%).
  • 12.5% of employees were trade union members (1.4 million).
  • 2.7 million casual employees (23% of employees, 20% of all employed), up from 2.4 million in August 2021.
  • 1.1 million independent contractors (8% of all employed).

Topics

Statistics from the Characteristics of Employment survey are published in four topic-based releases.

Microdata and TableBuilder

Characteristics of Employment microdata for 2014 to 2022 will be available in TableBuilder and DataLab from 16 December 2022. TableBuilder enables the creation of customised tables and graphs. For more information, refer to Microdata and TableBuilder: Characteristics of Employment

Earnings guide

To learn more about our different labour measures, their purpose and how to use them, see our Guide to labour statistics. It provides summary information on labour market topics including Earnings data.  

Data downloads

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Employee earnings

Data files
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Working arrangements

Data files
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Trade union membership

Data files

Data item list

TableBuilder - Characteristics of employment, Data item list, 2014 to 2022

Data files
Download xlsx [248.14 KB]

DataLab - Characteristics of employment, Data item list, 2014 to 2022

Data files
Download xlsx [390.74 KB]

Historical - Employee earnings

Table 2 - Median earnings for employees by demographic characteristics, 2014-2021

Data files
Download zip [838.52 KB]

Table 3 - Distribution of earnings for employees by industry, 2014-2021

Data files
Download zip [915.59 KB]

Table 4 - Distribution of earnings for employees by occupation and skill level, 2014-2021

Data files
Download zip [654.73 KB]

Table 5 - Distribution of earnings for employees by educational qualification, 2016-2021

Data files
Download zip [452.7 KB]

Table 6 - Median earnings for employees by industry, occupation and educational qualification, 2016-2021

Data files
Download zip [572.92 KB]

Historical - Working arrangements

Table 1 - Median earnings for employees and OMIEs by working arrangements, 2014-2021

Data files
Download zip [323.28 KB]

Table 2 - Median earnings for employees and OMIEs by demographic characteristics, 2014-2021

Data files
Download zip [828.12 KB]

Table 3 - Form of employment by demographic characteristics, 2014-2021

Data files
Download zip [520.77 KB]

Table 4 - Form of employment by industry, occupation and educational qualification, 2014-2021

Data files
Download zip [628.93 KB]

Table 5 - Independent contractors by whether had authority over own work, industry and occupation, 2014-2021

Data files
Download zip [198.7 KB]

Historical - Trade union membership

Table 3 - Median Earning for employees by duration (length) of current trade union membership, 2014-2021

Data files
Download zip [305.13 KB]

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6333.0*.

Prior to 2014, statistics were published in:

 

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

Methodology

Characteristics of Employment, Australia methodology, August 2022

Media releases