{"id":781076,"date":"2024-07-05T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=781076"},"modified":"2024-07-05T11:34:09","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T09:34:09","slug":"salaries-in-south-africa-set-for-big-increases-in-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/781076\/salaries-in-south-africa-set-for-big-increases-in-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Salaries in South Africa set for big increases in 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>South African salaries have had a solid start to 2024, and the rest of the year should remain positive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Several recent pieces of data show that South Africa&#8217;s salaries have ticked higher at the start of the year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stats SA&#8217;s latest Quarterly Employment Statistics (QES) showed that the average formal, non-agricultural salary in South Africa was R26,791 in Q1 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although this was a 0.1% decrease from R26,894 in Q4 2024, it was 4.6% higher than the R25,602 Q1 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, this year-on-year growth was still lower than inflation, which averaged around 5%, meaning that it had declined in real terms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nevertheless, the more recent BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index (BTPI), which analyses the salaries of roughly 3 million South Africans, saw a stronger increase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The nominal take-home pay reached R15,888 in May, showing a 10% improvement on year-ago levels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In real terms, salaries adjusted for inflation tracked slightly higher at R14,015 in May \u2013 or 4.5% up on year-ago levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>BankservAfrica said that the business environment has improved significantly since 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With no load shedding for 100 days (the first time since 2021), companies&#8217; ability to pay better salary increases has been boosted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cA comparison of the average nominal BankservAfrica Take-home Pay Index for the five months to May 2024, to the corresponding period one year earlier, <strong>revealed a 6.8% increase and a 1.4% growth in real terms<\/strong>,\u201d said Elize Kruger, Independent Economist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<strong>If sustained<\/strong> throughout the year, <strong>2024 could turn out to be a notably better year for salaries<\/strong>, unlike 2023, when the average nominal BTPI increased by only 1.2%.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The trends observed by BankserAfrica are consistent with the South African Reserve Bank&#8217;s forecast of an annual salary increase of 6.1% in 2024 for non-agricultural workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Specialist labour law practice Andrew Levy &amp; Associates also flagged a higher collective wage settlement level for 2024, between 6.5% and 7.2%, better than the average wage settlement rate in collective bargaining agreements of 6.3% in 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"9kbKb5IFqG\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/780750\/the-one-job-sector-paying-r1-million-salaries-in-south-africa\/\">The one job sector paying R1 million salaries in South Africa<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;The one job sector paying R1 million salaries in South Africa&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/780750\/the-one-job-sector-paying-r1-million-salaries-in-south-africa\/embed\/#?secret=0Z8vgGv8UK#?secret=9kbKb5IFqG\" data-secret=\"9kbKb5IFqG\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Less pressure on purse strings <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The increases will be good news for households who have faced a wretched last 18 to 24 months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consumers have had to battle elevated inflation and, in turn, 15-year-high interest rates, with the repo rate currently standing at 8.25%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although inflation has moderated from 7.8% y\/y in July 2022 to 5.2% in May 2024, potential interest rate cuts in 2025 remain debated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With forecasts suggesting that headline inflation will average 4.3% in Q4 2024 and the rand strengthening in recent weeks, BankservAfrica said starting the interest rate cutting cycle by no later than the September Monetary Policy Committee meeting should be considered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTwo 25bps cuts in interest rates are possible by year-end and could somewhat alleviate the pressure on households with credit exposure while stimulating retail expenditure,\u201d said Kruger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, economists remain divided on when the cutting cycle will start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nedbank&#8217;s economists expect cuts in September and November, while Investec Chief Economist Annabel Bishop expects the cutting cycle to only start in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bank of America&#8217;s (BofA&#8217;s) expectation is even worse and expects the cutting cycle to only start in January 2025, with a cumulative 100bps in January, March, May and July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>BofA said that the SARB is unlikely to cut before the US Federal Reserve, which is only expected to start cutting in December of this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-businesstech wp-block-embed-businesstech\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"7IEQ41ZQ6Y\"><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/780492\/what-the-gnu-means-for-interest-rates-in-south-africa\/\">What the GNU means for interest rates in South Africa<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"&#8220;What the GNU means for interest rates in South Africa&#8221; &#8212; BusinessTech\" src=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/780492\/what-the-gnu-means-for-interest-rates-in-south-africa\/embed\/#?secret=zRonwDDpQz#?secret=7IEQ41ZQ6Y\" data-secret=\"7IEQ41ZQ6Y\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Read<\/strong>:<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/781006\/auto-assessment-alert-from-sars\/\"> <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/781052\/when-south-africa-will-turn-the-corner\/\">When South Africa will turn the corner<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2024 has been a much better year for salaries than 2023, but there are still question marks over when interest rates will finally be cut. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":732837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[12671,16388,26,1498,1799],"class_list":["post-781076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-bankserv-africa","tag-bofa","tag-headline","tag-investec","tag-nedbank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781076","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781076"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":781133,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781076\/revisions\/781133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}