Advertised salaries on job board Seek in Australia rose by 4.4% in the year to January 2023. The 4.4% increase was slightly lower than the year to December 2022 (4.6%).

Seek noted that since late 2021, advertised salary growth has mostly been in the low-to-mid 4% range, with a brief dip below 4% in August and September 2022.

According to Seek, the growth in advertised salaries reflects strong demand for workers, a rising cost of living that is pushing up employees’ expectations for salary growth, and a larger than normal increase in the National Minimum Wage and award wages in 2022. Although labour market conditions show signs of softening, with job ads moderating in the second half of 2022 and unemployment rising slightly, it still remains tight by historical standards, and advertised salary growth reflects this.

Not all states and territories have experienced the same advertised salary growth over the past year. Tasmania saw rapid growth, with advertised salaries up 6.4% in the year to January. The Australian Capital Territory lagged behind the rest of the nation at 3.1%. The biggest states saw growth in the ‘low-4s’, with New South Wales at 4.2% and Victoria at 4.1% over the year.

The fastest advertised salary growth in the year to January was recorded in Trades & Services (6.3%), a broad industry that encompasses Butchers, Floristry, Hair & Beauty Services and a range of other roles. 

Over the month, advertised salaries rose by 0.2% in January and over the quarter it increased by 1.0%.

“Growth in advertised salaries has slowed for two consecutive months, which suggests that we may soon see the annual growth rate decline,” Seek stated.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate climbed to 3.7% in January 2023, the highest it’s been since May of last year but still a decline of 0.5% from the same month last year.