31 Mar BUDGET 2022: A STORY OF JOBS AND WAGE GROWTH; WHAT WORKERS REALLY WANT
Welcome to this week’s business and media intelligence update.
BUDGET 2022: A STORY OF JOBS AND WAGE GROWTH
With a federal election expected to be called within days, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Tuesday night delivered a Budget bursting with goodies – from petrol price relief to one-off payments for pensioners.
But the most optimistic story must surely be the Treasury’s forecast for unemployment to fall from its current level of four per cent to 3.75 per cent by September 2022, which would be the lowest level of unemployment in almost 50 years.
The revised forecast is three percentage points lower than what was predicted in the first pandemic budget for 2020-21.
As unemployment falls, the Government expects Australian workers will get a boost in their paychecks next financial year.
SPEAKING OF PAY RISES…
Skilled workers who change jobs could earn a pay rise of up to 20 per cent.
According to Carlos Cash, chief economist at banking firm Jardens, businesses have been offering employees a 10 to 20 per cent salary lift in a bid to motivate them to switch jobs.
The largest pay hikes were going to workers who move to jobs in the construction, mining, auditing and finance sectors.
But despite the extra dollars, few Australians are churning through jobs, it seems.
Labour mobility is at its lowest level in decades due in part to an aging workforce, weak wage growth and the high cost of housing.
WHAT WORKERS REALLY WANT
What employees want and what their senior executives think they want are two completely different things, according to new research by consultancy firm PwC.
When asked to rank their preferences based on what they value most from an employer, staff listed their top three as “working with good co-workers”, “work-life balance”, and “pay”.
Their executives, on the other hand, listed “values alignment”, “on the job learning”, and “learning and upskilling”.
How did they get it so wrong? One reason, according to PwC, is that the pandemic has seen leadership teams take greater control to guide employees through uncertainty.
But as the economy begins to recover, the balance of power has shifted back to employees, meaning a more bottom-up approach is needed to engage the workforce and bring them back into the decision-making process.
Power to the workers, after all ….
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