{"id":470314,"date":"2021-02-23T12:57:42","date_gmt":"2021-02-23T10:57:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=470314"},"modified":"2021-02-23T12:57:42","modified_gmt":"2021-02-23T10:57:42","slug":"this-is-the-average-take-home-pay-in-south-africa-right-now-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/470314\/this-is-the-average-take-home-pay-in-south-africa-right-now-19\/","title":{"rendered":"This is the average take-home pay in South Africa right now"},"content":{"rendered":"

The real average and overall salary paid in South Africa contracted in January 2021 after coming under strain from the pandemic and level 3 lockdown, the latest BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index (BTPI) shows.<\/p>\n

“The real average salary was R13,030<\/strong>, which represents a 2.4% decline from December 2020 and a -0.2% year-on-year decrease,” said Shergeran Naidoo, BankservAfrica\u2019s Head of Stakeholder Engagements.<\/p>\n

“This is a sure sign of the pressure that average salaries faced under this period.”<\/p>\n

This, however, reflects a return to the usual movements as average salaries in the BTPI typically decline before making a slight comeback in real terms.<\/p>\n

It could also have to do with the high average salary base from the previous year, Naidoo said.<\/p>\n

“As South Africa and the world begins to emerge from the lockdown and pandemic, and vaccinations slowly come to the rescue, one can expect a return of negative months before things hopefully improve,” said Mike Sch\u00fcssler, chief economist at economists.co.za.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Inflation also played a role in the BTPI. In January 2021, the total take-home pay paid into the combined bank accounts of employees was up by just 0.6% before inflation. However, when taking inflation over the past year into consideration, this declined by 2.5%.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe economic bounce back has been impressive and most formal sector employees paid via the National Payment System have managed to keep their jobs or were re-employed,” said Sch\u00fcssler.<\/p>\n

However, one should not get optimistic too soon as the total number of banked take-home pay remains lower than a year ago and before the pandemic.<\/p>\n

“A number of people are still not back at work, which we believe to be the reason for the 3.2% decline in the monthly equivalent paid between January 2020 and 2021,” said Sch\u00fcssler.<\/p>\n

According to the BTPI, the average salary figures are beginning to normalise, as has been expected a few months back. This return to normal for salaries should continue with a few affected industries expected to experience some shocks in the coming months.<\/p>\n

The overall take-home numbers suggest January will be a weak consumer spending month when compared to a year ago.<\/p>\n

However, the reinstatement of the COVID-TERS payments until the end of March for industries affected by the lockdown may provide some relief in the short term.<\/p>\n

But, with the average real take-home pay declining, it will be interesting to see if there will be tax relief for employed South Africans when the National Budget Speech is tabled tomorrow.<\/p>\n

This is as businesses and households come under even more financial pressure from the planned 16% hike in electricity costs in April.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Higher minimum wage for South Africa was not a \u2018thumb suck\u2019: minister<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The real average and overall salary paid contracted in January 2021 after coming under strain from the pandemic and level 3 lockdown,to the latest BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index (BTPI) shows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":297616,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[12671,26],"class_list":["post-470314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-bankserv-africa","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470314"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":470324,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470314\/revisions\/470324"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}