Total wages lift on September bonuses, employment growth: ABS

The news: Total wages lifted 3.8% in September, according to ABS figures, on the back of wage growth, higher total employment and seasonal bonuses.

The numbers: Employees earned $99.6 billion in wages and salaries in September, up from $95.9 billion in August. September is a seasonal peak in earnings, ABS said, when bonuses are paid out across a number of industries. Total wages paid out by employers were 8.4%, or $7.7 billion, higher than September last year.

The context: ABS' Monthly Employee Earnings Indicator is a new experimental measure of aggregate wages and salaries from single touch payroll data. The statistics agency is considering the future separation of periodic payments like bonuses and overtime.

What they said: "As with all aggregate measures of total wages and salaries, today’s data reflects a combination of underlying wage growth, the increase in employment reported in other ABS measures, and other compositional changes such as hours worked and periodic payments," ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said.