Apparently we're rich ... please don't tell Stanhope

Private sector: $30,000
Public Sector 2 years later, exactly the same job: $72,000

So Private sector not always better!!!!

Disclaimer: Based purely on my own experience over the last 2 years.

Sammy you must hang with a rarified crowd! In the distant past I recall being involved in negotiations for a Dept of Environment & Heritage certified agreement, working the numbers we came up with one persone at the then EA 1 level, and handful at EA2 – back then above EA3 got you into the ballpark for the average wage as stated at the top of this thread. With 900 staff at the time the department was not considered unusual in its staff/level profile in the overall PS picture. The vast majority of staff back then fell in the EA6/EL1 band and if you threw in EA5’s and EL2’s you pretty much accounted for 80% of the departements staffing.

That said Canberra isn’t the public service laden town it used to be and whilst the pubes still account for a fair crack of the job force, there’s a bunch of money being made in the private sector. Looking across industries like IT, real estate, engineering, business services – which in a sense all feed off the Commonwealth to some degree it’s not too hard to crack $100k/pa.

An arts graduates – I employ two and they’re making $125 and hour and not complaining.

Being a recent arrival from Brisbane, I am definitely getting paid more in Canberra…but it’s also costing me a lot more to live here than it did to live in Brisbane (Oh, $185 a week rent, how I miss you!). Wealth is relative to the cost of living, which I’m sure everyone would agree varies wildly around the country.

the vast majority of these people would be recent uni grads

A lot of the low-level public servants I know are *not* University graduates, and of those who are, they are usually working in a completely unrelated field (ie. performing any sort of job with an Arts degree 🙂

The majority of PS positions now atr at the 5-6 level which pegs them in that $40-60k/pa bracket. My impression, based on dealings with the Commonwealth PS over the years is that the vast majority of these people would be recent uni grads (generally with honours or post grad qualifications) – hot property in any town and hardly trolly fodder.

That said, $40k/pa isn’t a lot compared to private sector professional remuneration.

Once you get outside retail, great chunks of the private sector do way better.
* Accountants (not book keepers) 70-100
* Engineers (65-130)
For example. Anybody who went into the professions will make twice the ABS average.

God knows how people bring up a family of $44k. Thank god for middle class welfare I guess.

Miz – Don’t forget the IT contractors pulling in $90 – $150 per HOUR.

Must be a fair amount of filthy rich people to pull up that average so much. I guess that would be PS heads, corp heads and all those consultants?

Er, guys – *average* salary. It’s a high figure. There are folks out there that would dream of $45K a year. Hell, I was on about $20K/year just 2 years ago. I *still* don’t quite make that much per year but I consider that I’m on good money.

Very old figures there. The AWOTE of Australians is reported quarterly by the ABS and they put those figures out by over 10k per annum. (AWOTE = Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings). The Aus average was $1058 per week (55106pa)for november 06. Private sector average was $1026 (53352pa) and the public sector was $1174 (61048pa). In terms of state figures, in May 06 AWOTE for the ACT was $1201, the nearest competitor was NSW at $1079. The lowest was Tasmania at $943

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/7d12b0f6763c78caca257061001cc588/7D139A17E8ED8FBDCA2572360001FCF7?opendocument