Wage Growth

Yeah but at the same time there's definitely an incomes and wages recession in Australia - and it's been going on since the GFC onwards - discussed further here - Australia managed to survive the global recession – but all that good work has been wasted | Greg Jericho

 

Job ads plummet in Sydney, Melbourne as companies tighten their budgets

"Job advertisements in Sydney and Melbourne are falling at double digit rates, prompting concern unemployment may be increasing despite cuts in official interest rates and the Morrison government's tax cuts for low and middle income earners."

 

This is laughable at absolute best.
“The data provided by Seek”....
So anyone who works in recruitment will know Seek have been extremely aggressive in their push for their Seek Premium Talent Search (STP) product. Their actual selling line is “Reduce the number of ads you post”.
Their investment into STP has been huge and the tech is continually developing to further reduce the need for posting ads.

They also specifically sell their new algorithm of ad rankings so that ads do not need to be refreshed. Refreshed is the act of simply posting an already posted ad to get it back to the top of the list OR changing a classification for a crack at another sector. However research now shows well over 50% don’t even use classification filters

So this article could not be more misguided if it tried. The people providing the data are the ones saying don’t post ads! Just source direct from our 9million strong candidate database.

 

Is the ABS Job Vacancies also laughable?

6354.0 - Job Vacancies, Australia, Aug 2019

The number of job vacancies in Australia decreased by 1.3 per cent over the August 2019 quarter, according to new trend figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Bruce Hockman, Chief Economist at the ABS, said that following a period of growth, the trend level of vacancies had declined for the last three quarters.

"The quarterly trend measure of job vacancies fell 1.3 per cent in August 2019, following a sustained period of growth from 2013 to 2018," Mr Hockman said.

"This fall led to the first annual decline of job vacancies since February 2014, of 1.4 per cent over the year"

 

Just giving this a bump, seems like a DC for a supermarket is about to agree on and EA with 8%,4%,4% pay rise over 3 years and an increase to redundancy payments to boot. This deal is almost unbelievable in the current climate, might be an inspiration for other sites and industries to aim higher in EA negotiations.

 

Woolworths Minchinbury?

Mind you Woolworths have saved a bit on wages over the last few years too...

 

Its amazing how conditioned we are to submit to the self-serve 'everything' (including checkouts at supermarkets) reality forced upon us, without ever questioning the fact that food prices at supermarkets continue to increase despite the supermarket saving wage-costs at checkouts, despite inflation-rate stalling, despite wage-growth non-existent. Interesting, huh

 

The spitting image of the devil himself......

 

Oh dear, that is a frightening picture.

 

Really what other choice do you have it’s self serve or wait forever at the one manned counter. McDonald’s is the worst for it now, they will attempt to shoo you away if you approach the counter.

The argument seems to be that it’s about providing better customer experience, that is true for a percentage of customers but to have tens of people crashing trolleys around a self serve corral at Woolworths or having to struggle with a clunky ordering system (acceptable for a single item order just painful for a large one) at McDonald’s does not deliver a good experience.

 

I agree!

Again, fascinating to me that McDonald's have reduced their staff overheads via the semi-mandatory self serve kiosks, yet their entire menu continues to increase in item-prices in seemingly greater proportion than the 1.7% inflation rate. Fascinating indeed.

Cannot believe people then pay $15 for a maccas meal + $5 uber eats delivery fee to have this poor quality food delivered to their house! In most cities you can tuck into a great quality Asian meal for $15 or less with fresh ingredients and cooked ready to order for you.

 

I never use self serve, even if it means waiting 10 minutes more. Once they suggested that I go to the self serve checkouts because I only had a few things. I did, but insisted that the person looking after it scan and bag my items.

I've told them many times at the local Woolies that I deliberately do this to generate employment.

 

On the plus side...

 

I wonder if that recent dive in McDonald's stock price will continue or if it's just a bump in the road.

 

Sort of off topic but relevant.
Just on the entire self service.

How many people here use a more expensive alternative purely for better customer service quality?

I’m all for saving a buck but their are some places you just need quality customer service even if the end product is exactly the same.
The one main example I can use is our local pharmacy versus chemist warehouse.

Our pharmacist has been doing it for 30 years and really cares. Even if we have a script we will fill it there even if their is more markup.

Don’t get me started on just how poor the CW pharmacists are.

 

Most recently used a flooring company that was more expensive, however was family owned, you met the owners, they didn't try and sell you and could tell they really cared, I would 100% sooner support a family run local business then give it to the majors in any industry, I apply the same to Vets, cafes, car washes, restaurants etc.

 

Yep 100%

Got NBN recently through Aussie Broadband. Australian owned and call center in Morwell. Fantastic product and service (couldn't tell you the price) would recommend.

Don't even get me started on my Telstra phones and the service they provide

 

Mine's gone up around 140% in the last 5 years. Changed companies a couple of times to do this

I'm in software sales. There's a commission component but my base salary is up around 120%

 

Yeah I just signed up with Aussie broadband for the same reason. Very happy so far. Saving $5 a month for worse service is not a good trade - the headaches of being on hold!!

This is also how psychological research suggest we should spend money to maximise happiness. Removing a negative from your life is more beneficial to your happiness than adding a positive. another 2 inches of... tv screen will not improve your happiness but less time on hold might.