18 October 2023
Southland salaries close to national average, rising almost 10% in 2023
Salaries in Southland grew by 9-10% to $70,106 compared to the same time last year, coming closer to the national average of $71,820 recorded in the third quarter of July to September, according to figures from TradeMe.
Southland joined Wellington ($76,041), Otago ($70,977), Canterbury ($70,404) and Marlborough ($70,039) which saw the largest average pay rise between 9-10% as compared to the same time last year.
This was on the back of an 88% spike in job applications over the last six months compared to the same period last year, TradeMe Jobs sales director Matt Tolich said on the company’s jobs and salaries report.
Tolich said that the number of job applications exceeded those in 2018.
“For the past 12 months, we have seen the national average salary break record after record as employers are forced to put more money on the table to help Kiwis combat the rising cost of living,” he said.
“In the third quarter of 2023, we saw an 8% annual increase in average salary which is slightly higher than the latest inflation figures from Stats NZ at 6%. This will be music to the ears of many Kiwis,” he said.
Southland Chamber of Commerce chief executive officer Sheree Carey said that while the increase was an added cost to employers, “the Chamber supports the region to provide high skilled/high wage jobs to drive our local economy”.
“Like the rest of the country, we have a tight labour market in Southland, which inevitably means that employees are always weighing up their options,” she said.
Carey had heard of the salary increase anecdotally across sectors.
Salaries rising across industries
Industries such as healthcare (up 10% to $70,649 on last year), trades & and services (up 9% to $71,283), manufacturing and operations (up 9% to $62,859), education (up 8%to $69,487) and hospitality and tourism (up 8% to $61,607) were responsible for driving the increase in the average salaries across the country, the TradeMe report said.
Pharmacists saw the largest average salary increase of any role, with a 20% annual increase from $63,252 to $76,155.
Telecommunications professionals and roofers saw a 17% jump in their average salary to $85,728 and $81,516 respectively.
Psychologists and counsellors saw an 18% increase in their average salary to $84,797, while the average salary for estimators in construction and roading jumped 19% to $114,872.
The pay rises were seen across several industries such as accounting, automotive, construction and roading, customer service, engineering, HR and recruitment, marketing – media and communications, office and administration, retail, sales, and transport and logistics.
Job listings on TradeMe were down by 7.9% in Q3 2023 compared to Q2 because of the election uncertainty running through the job market.
Tolich added that while this was pretty normal, TradeMe expected job listings to bounce back in November and into the new year.
Source: stuff.co.nz – 17 October 2023