Stagnant wages, job insecurity plaguing Australian | Australian Markets

Tight budgets have sparked a freeze in hiring in skilled industries, an Australian recruitment company says.

A new report by financial providers recruitment company Keegan Adams finds the hole between wage expectations and pay packets on offer continues to widen.

“We are seeing tight budgets hold salaries down and bring productivity to the top of companies’ concerns,” Keegan Adams managing director Claire Tate stated.

“They also mean smaller hiring budgets, which – with confusion and job insecurity keeping employees in place – are seeing a ‘great freeze’.”

The latest wage and inflation information reveals pay has simply overtaken the associated fee of residing.

On Tuesday, the RBA held the money charge and the central bank governor Michele Bullock stated inflation was headed in the correct direction.

The latest national information places the patron price index at 2.4 per cent – in annual phrases – as of December, with wages rising 3.2 per cent final 12 months.

The Keegan Adams survey finds financial providers wages “stagnated” at 3.6 per cent final 12 months regardless of that increase topping the national average.

The financial sector is paying staff decrease base salaries and rewarding “exceptional contributors” with bigger bonuses, Keegan Adams finds.

And on the identical time, skilled providers companies are placing time and money into management coaches and rejigging worker coaching and “wellbeing” schemes.

But tighter budgets imply fewer enhancements to health and youngster care, much less worker possession/share schemes, and fewer boosts to parental, carer and mental health go away, the survey finds.

Working from the workplace stays a key level of friction in company Australia.

The survey finds 47 per cent of workplaces mandated more days within the workplace in 2024, up to a 3.25 days per week average.

Ten per cent of employers imagine working from the workplace guidelines have an effect on worker satisfaction. Almost 60 per cent of staff say they’re much less joyful and fewer more likely to keep of their job.