Boom Bonanza Trickles Down To Miners

The Age

Tuesday April 15, 2008

Ben Schneiders

IT IS not just mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto getting rich from the resources boom.

Full-time mining workers are, on average, making just over $90,000 a year, an increase of more than 7% in the year to August 2007. Pay in the sector has risen by about a third since 2001, according to Bureau of Statistics data.

It's a different story in the hospitality industry, where pay is the poorest. Full-time employees earn $781 a week on average, while for part-timers it is just $260 a week.

Wages for men are on average $1216 a week in Australia; for women they are $971 a week. Over the course of a year that works out to a difference of nearly $13,000. In part-time work, women make $8 a week more than men.

Overall, the last decade has seen strong growth in wages, with pay for all sorts of workers rising by 58%. Average wages are highest in the home of the federal public service, the Australian Capital Territory, where pay is $1350 a week, or just over $70,000 a year.

In Victoria, average pay - which takes in men and women - is $1097 a week, an increase of 4.8% from a year ago. Average pay is lower in Victoria than in NSW and Western Australia, which has benefited from the mining boom. -- BEN SCHNEIDERS

© 2008 The Age

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