The average weekly wage in Western Australia has proven itself resilient against the economic downturn, growing 7 per cent in the last year to a seasonally adjusted $1,306.30, new figures show.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics said today that WA's average weekly ordinary time earnings (AWOTE) had risen from $1,221.90 in August last year to $1,306.30 in August this year, higher than the national average.
The average wage earned by a female working in WA rose 9.3 per cent from $982.80 recorded in August last year to $1,074.60.
Wages for males working in WA grew 6 per cent from $1,340.80 to $1.422.20.
Nationally, the average weekly wage in Australia is now $1,200.60, after rising by 5.2 per cent in the year to August.
The quarterly seasonally-adjusted pace of AWOTE rose 0.9 per cent in the three months to August.
This was a slight moderation on the 1.3 per cent quarterly growth recorded in the three months to May but still left the annual rate well above the Reserve Bank of Australia's perceived "line in the sand" at 4.5 per cent.
Still, the composition of the AWOTE series tends to make it volatile, which is why the RBA prefers to use the wage price index - released on Wednesday - as one of its main guides to wages growth.
That index showed a more modest pace of growth of 0.7 per cent in the three months to September with the annual rate a subdued 3.6 per cent, its slowest pace in nearly five years.
