Latest news

13 November 2008

Minimum Wage Research Forum

The Australian Fair Pay Commission's first Minimum Wage Research Forum brought together local and international researchers and academics, and many of the Commission’s key stakeholder organisations, to debate and discuss the role of minimum wages in the Australian context.

1 October 2008

Employers set to pay Federal Minimum Wage increase

From 1 October, employers will need to adjust their payrolls to take into account a $21.66 per week increase in the standard Federal Minimum Wage. The increase was awarded by the Australian Fair Pay Commission in its 2008 general Wage-Setting Decision announced on 8 July this year and takes effect from the first pay period on or after 1 October 2008.

17 September 2008

Pay Scale Summaries updated

Pay Scale Summaries for more than 400 of the most commonly used awards have been published on the Workplace Authority website. The summaries have been adjusted to take account of the Commission’s general Wage-Setting Decision 2008.

8 July 2008

Downloads of 2008 Minimum Wage Decision

Decision documents    Fact sheets Commissioned research
Media release (PDF 47Kb)   Speech (PDF 38Kb)
Audio (WMF 1.8Mb)    Video (WMF 21Mb)

Current minimum wage rates

The general Wage-Setting Decision 2008 has two main elements:

• an increase of $21.66 per week ($0.57 per hour) to the standard Federal Minimum Wage (FMW) bringing the weekly rate to $543.78. The standard FMW increases from $13.74 to $14.31 per hour; and
  
  
• an increase of approximately $21.66 per week ($0.57 per hour) for adult rates of pay in Australian Pay and Classification Scales (Pay Scales).

These increases flow on to junior employees, employees to whom training arrangements apply, employees with a disability, casual employees and employees receiving basic piece rates of pay.