Employment and wages

Information provided below are based on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) labour force and wages data unless otherwise stated.

Employment in the finance industry

There were 208,900 people employed in the finance industry, making up 1.83% of the employed labour force in Australia as at November 2010.
 
Finance industry employment peaked in November 2008 at 216,300, at the height of the global financial crisis.
 
The broken line in the chart below displays the average of the quarterly data over a year, reducing some of the volatility of the actual quarterly data series.  This smoothed series shows a reduction in finance industry employment in order of 12,000 since the peak in November 2008.
 
The chart clearly shows a trend rise in finance industry employment over a six year period from November 2002 to November 2008.  Over this time 50,000 jobs were added to the finance industry, an increase of 30%.

Over the past 10 years, the contribution to total employment in Australia from the finance industry has remained in a tight range 1.7% to 2.2%.

Employment contribution to State and Territory economies

The finance and insurance industry employed, on average, 398,000 people in Australia or 3.6% of total employment over the 12 months to the end of November 2010.

The finance and insurance industry accounts for 4.6% of employees in NSW, averaging 163,000 employees over the past year.

	NSW	Vic	Qld	SA	WA	Tas	NT	ACT	Total
Nov-97	4.5%	4.2%	2.9%	3.2%	2.8%	2.4%	2.2%	1.9%	3.7%
Nov-01	4.9%	4.0%	2.7%	3.3%	2.7%	2.3%	1.6%	2.5%	3.8%
Nov-06	5.1%	4.0%	2.9%	2.8%	2.7%	2.2%	1.9%	2.1%	3.8%
Nov-07	5.2%	4.2%	2.6%	3.1%	2.8%	2.8%	2.1%	2.1%	3.9%
Nov-08	4.9%	3.9%	2.8%	3.2%	2.6%	2.9%	1.9%	2.6%	3.7%
Nov-09	5.0%	3.8%	2.5%	3.1%	2.5%	2.3%	1.9%	2.0%	3.6%
Nov-10	4.6%	4.0%	2.5%	2.9%	2.5%	2.2%	1.4%	2.1%	3.6%

Over the 12 months to the end of November 2010, on average, 82% of finance and insurance industry employees were based in a capital city while 18% were in other areas of the State.  Only in Queensland and Tasmania does the capital city proportion of employment fall below 80% for the finance and insurance industry. That is, Brisbane accounts for 60% of finance and insurance industry employment in Queensland while Hobart accounts for 60% in Tasmania.

 

	Capital city		Balance of state		Total
Avg 12 months:	('000)	%distbn	('000)	%distbn	('000)	%distbn
Sydney	139	84.8%	25	15.2%	164	100.0%
Melbourne	99	88.4%	13	11.6%	112	100.0%
Brisbane	34	59.6%	23	40.4%	57	100.0%
Adelaide	19	82.6%	4	17.4%	23	100.0%
Perth	28	90.3%	3	9.7%	31	100.0%
Hobart	3	60.0%	2	40.0%	5	100.0%
Total (6 states)	322	82.1%	70	17.9%	392	100.0%

In Sydney, 6.0% of all jobs are in the finance and insurance industry while for Melbourne, this is 4.6%.

Gender distribution

The banking industry is a key and pioneering industry in providing employment opportunities for women, including working mothers. This is supported by official data which shows that, on average, over the past three years, 56.3% of finance industry employees are women, compared to the national average of around 45.4%.
 
Data for November 2010 shows that 52.5% of employees in the finance industry are female and 47.5% are male.

Source: ABS

Of the industry divisions for which ABS release data, the finance and insurance industry ranks as one of the highest for participation of females.  Furthermore, if we consider the finance industry itself (which ABS classify an industry subdivision) it is clear that this industry has a significantly higher female participation than for the overall employed labour force (being 52.5% vs 47.5% in November 2010).
 
The finance and insurance industry is the fifth highest industry, of the 19 industry divisions, in terms of the proportion of female employees.

Full-time and part-time distribution

The ABS labour force statistics show that the proportion of employees who work full-time in the finance industry is higher than for the overall labour force.
 
On average over the past three years (to the end of November 2010), finance industry employment has been generally distributed as 82% full-time and 18% part-time.  This compares with 70% full-time and 30% part-time for overall employment in Australia.

The table below shows the full-time and part-time distribution of employment for each industry division.

Unemployment in the finance and insurance industry

Official data shows that the unemployment rate for the finance and insurance industry was 1.8% as at November 2010 compared with 5.0% across the whole labour force.

The chart below shows that the unemployment rate for the finance and insurance industry generally remains significantly below the overall unemployment rate (i.e. for all industries).  At the height of the global financial crisis, November quarter 2010, the unemployment rate for the finance and insurance industry reached 3.7%.

Occupation - finance and insurance industry

As at November 2010, the majority of employees in the finance and insurance industry were clerical and administrative workers making up 166,000 or 43.7% of employment in the finance and insurance industry.  In fact, clerical and administrative workers have made up the largest proportion of finance and insurance industry employment over the past decade but the proportion has been falling, from 53.9% in 2000 to 43.7% in 2010.

On the other hand, the proportion of managers and professionals in the finance and insurance industry has been rising.  For managers, the increase has been from 10.9% to 16.3% and for professionals 28.8% to 33.7% over the past decade.

The proportion of males and females having an occupation of manager in the finance and insurance industry is greater than that for the overall employed labour force (i.e. all industries).  That is, 20.3% of males are managers in the finance and insurance industry as compared to 15.5% for males across all industries.  For females, the proportion who are managers in the finance and insurance industry (12.4%) is considerably higher than for the overall employed female labour force (9.5%).
 
For males, the proportion who are classified as professionals in the finance and insurance industry (42.8%) is much higher than for the overall employed male labour force (18.2%).  For females, the proportion of professionals is the same for the finance and insurance industry as it is for the overall employed female labour force (24.7%).

Employment - main retail banks

In Australia, the main retail banks employed 148,700 domestic employees at the end of 2010.  This was an increase of around 9,000 employees over the previous year.
 
In an environment which has seen significant employment reductions in the banking sector in other countries, this is a solid result for the main Australian retail banks.

Finance industry - age distribution

As at November 2010, almost 36.6% of the 208,900 persons employed in the finance industry were aged between 25 years and 34 years.  A total of 11.0% were aged 55 or over and 14.2% were aged under 25.

Wages and average weekly earnings

Australia’s retail banks paid out $21.0 billion in wages in 2010 – this was more than half (55%) of their total operating expenses.
 
At $1,519 per week, average wages in the finance and insurance industry are 21% higher than the national average of $1,259 per week, as at November 2010.
 
Over the three years prior to the onset of the global financial crisis, average weekly ordinary time earnings for the finance and insurance industry were, on average, about 23% higher than for all industries.  This has fallen to an average of 19% since August 2007 (the commencement of the global financial crisis).

The ABS wage price index shows that ordinary time hourly rates of pay excluding bonuses for the finance and insurance industry increased by 4.3% over the 12 months to the end of September 2010.  This compares with 3.5% for private industry overall and 3.6% for all industries (private and public).

Wage growth for the finance and insurance industry hit a peak of 4.5% over calendar year 2008 but then fell sharply resulting in a 1.9% increase over calendar year 2009.

Updated February 2011