How much money the average person in South Africa gets paid right now
May reflected a slight increase of 0.9% in take-home pay for the third consecutive month in 2017, according to BankservAfrica’s latest Disposable Salary Index (BDSI) data.
BankservAfrica’s data also showed that South Africa’s formal workers are faring slightly better than in 2016.
According to the May BDSI, the seasonally adjusted real take-home pay averaged at R13,790 in May 2017, slightly lower than April’s R13,914.
With most of the last two years indicating declines in real take-home pay, the overall picture reflects no real salary changes in the formal sector.
In nominal terms, the average disposable salary increased by 6.6% on a year-on-year basis – slower than the 7% comparative increase between April 2017 and April 2016, BankservAfrica said.
The automated clearing house and payments system operator‘s data comes in the same week as the latest jobs data by StatsSA which showed a quarter -on-quarter increase of 0.8% in average monthly earnings paid to employees in the formal non-agricultural sector from R18,536 in November 2016, to R18,687 in February 2017.
Year-on-year, average monthly earnings increased by 8.3% from R17,262 the stats body said.
| Industry | Monthly salary (current prices) | Monthly salary (constant prices) |
|---|---|---|
| Mining and quarrying | 22 185 | 21 814 |
| Manufacturing | 16 270 | 15 998 |
| Electricity, gas and water supply | 37 898 | 37 265 |
| Construction | 14 660 | 14 415 |
| Wholesale and retail trade; repair of motor vehicles, motor cycles and personal and household goods; hotels and restaurants | 12 567 | 12 357 |
| Transport storage and communication | 22 349 | 21 975 |
| Financial Intermediation, insurance, real estate and business services | 20 556 | 20 212 |
| Community, social and personal services | 22 335 | 21 962 |
| All industries | 18 687 | 18 357 |
“The BDSI indicates that the trend of shrinking salaries has been replaced with slowly increasing salaries. This is due to 2016’s higher consumer price inflation which helped to lift salary increases by the public sector,” said chief economist at Economists dotcoza, Mike Schüssler.
Data published by the Economists.co.za and the National Treasury in April showed that personal taxes (8.8%) increased faster than the rate of total banked salaries (6.4%).
This trend – which has also become more distinct over time – can be attributed to the national budget revenue that has not made full allowance for inflationary adjustments when tax brackets are adjusted.
“It is likely that this trend will continue for some time – and could also be the reason for the slow increase in real terms as tax brackets are adjusted by 1% while inflation averaged 6.4% in 2016.
“As salary adjustments are largely based on the inflation rate, much of the increases in nominal salaries are taxed at higher tax rates. This makes it difficult for salaried employees to keep up their lifestyles as the higher tax rate impacts take-home pay,” said Schüssler.
Read: These government departments pay the highest average salaries
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