{"id":833543,"date":"2025-07-30T12:00:27","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T10:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=833543"},"modified":"2025-07-30T12:06:23","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T10:06:23","slug":"its-a-good-year-for-salaries-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/finance\/833543\/its-a-good-year-for-salaries-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s a good year for salaries in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BankservAfrica’s latest Take-home Pay Index shows that disposable income in South Africa has stabilised after three months of moderation, with six-month data signalling a “good year for salaries”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this is largely thanks to the relief from much lower inflation and declining interest rates, not helped by a continued deterioration of the economic outlook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the BankservAfrica, the nominal average take-home pay was R17,310 in June 2025, showing a marginal 0.1% decline on May\u2019s R17,325. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this was still notably above the R15,514 level a year ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Real take-home pay, adjusted for inflation, moderated marginally by 0.2% month-on-month to R14,804 in June 2025, compared to R14,827 in May, but still notably up on year-ago levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While the first six months of BTPI data signals 2025 will, on average, be a good salary year, the economic outlook has deteriorated in recent months,” the group said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The significant moderation in consumer inflation during 2024 has had a positive impact on the purchasing power of salary earners and the scenario is continuing into 2025, with the latest headline CPI figure at only 3% for June 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After challenging years for salary earners, due to the sluggish local economy and the elevated inflation rate, 2024 has turned out to be the best year since 2015, with an average real salary increase of 1.5%<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independent economist Elize Kruger noted that inflation is expected to average 3.5% in 2025, compared to 4.4% in 2024. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, industry surveys suggest that the average salary increase will be above 5% in 2025, pointing to a year of a significant real increase in earnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the boost to salaries, the favourable inflation environment has also created room for the South African Reserve Bank to cut interest rates further, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economists are expecting a 25-basis-point cut when the Monetary Policy Committee makes its announcement on Thursday (31 July), although it is also likely to signal the end of the cutting cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the SARB opts to hold, one more 25-basis-point cut could come in September. Regardless, the forecast is for one more cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will give further relief to indebted consumers, and boost sectors like the property market, which has already started to see a positive turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Headwinds are still around<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Independent economist, Elize Kruger<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

BankservAfrica noted that 2025 is turning out to be a volatile year for the economy, with headwinds from geopolitics, global trade, and tariff wars weighing on sentiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, real consumption expenditure has held up well, which is an encouraging sign for an economy heavily reliant on consumer spending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Even with confidence levels slipping in Q1, the level of real final consumption expenditure by households was 2.8% higher compared to a year earlier,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Early indications from Stats SA indicate that the performance continued in Q2, with real retail sales in the first five months of the year up by 4.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the general economic environment has deteriorated in recent months, with downward revisions to growth prospects – both locally and globally – and high levels of uncertainty, fuelling low confidence and a pause on investment decisions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It added that this could affect employment levels and earnings in the coming months in an economy with an already high unemployment rate of 32.9%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, tensions between the US and South Africa, coupled with uncertainty over the tariff landscape beyond 1 August, present a growing concern for the economy and its trade outlook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs such, it remains of utmost importance that the South African government prioritise its diplomatic engagement with US authorities to negotiate a favourable trade regime, to avert job losses in sectors, such as automotive and agriculture, which would otherwise face severe impacts,\u201d said Kruger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BankservAfrica’s latest Take-home Pay Index shows that disposable income in South Africa has stabilised after three months of moderation, with six-month data signalling a “good year for salaries”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":810442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11121],"tags":[1976],"class_list":["post-833543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance","tag-bankservafrica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833543","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=833543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":833545,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833543\/revisions\/833545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}