{"id":877450,"date":"2026-09-29T15:03:44","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T13:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=877450"},"modified":"2026-09-29T15:03:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T13:03:47","slug":"this-is-what-the-average-employee-is-earning-in-south-africa-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/877450\/this-is-what-the-average-employee-is-earning-in-south-africa-right-now\/","title":{"rendered":"This is what the average employee is earning in South Africa right now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stats SA has published its latest Quarterly Employment Survey for the second quarter of 2026, recording a 4.1% increase in the average salary in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Stats SA, average monthly earnings paid to employees increased by 2.6% quarter-on-quarter, from R29,825 in February 2026 to R30,611 in May 2026. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year average monthly earnings paid to employees increased by 4.1% from R29,402 recorded in May 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The earnings reflect the average paid to the formal, non-agricultural sector, covering eight broad industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, the 4.1% year-on-year increase in salaries is lower than the inflation recorded in May (4.5%), meaning earnings are not currently keeping up with the rising cost of living.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this is not across the board. Some sectors are faring better than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The construction sector is suffering the most, recording only 1.7% year-on-year earnings growth. This is followed by business services (+2.1%), trade (+2.9%), and mining (+3.4%), all of which came in under CPI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The remaining sectors saw real earnings growth, with manufacturing up 4.7%, Transport up 5.7%, community services (including government) up 6%, and the electricity sector earnings up 7.9%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gross earnings paid to employees decreased by R4.8 billion or -0.5% from R1.029 trillion in March 2025 to R1.025 trillion in June 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to decreases in business services, mining, and transport. However, community services, trade, construction, manufacturing, and electricity increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year gross earnings increased by R35.1 billion or 3.5% between June 2025 and June 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basic salary\/wages paid to employees increased by R15.5 billion or 1.7% from R914.6 billion in March 2026 to R930.1 billion in June 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to increases in community services, business services, construction, trade, and manufacturing. However, mining, electricity, and transport reported decreases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year basic salary\/wages increased by R26.7 billion or 3.0% between June 2025 and June 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonuses paid to employees decreased by R23 billion or -26.9% from R85.8 billion in March 2025 to R62.8 billion in June 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to decreases in the business services, community services, transport, manufacturing, and electricity industries. However, the trade and construction industries reported an increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year bonus payments increased by R6.1 billion or 10.8% between June 2025 and June 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overtime paid to employees increased by R2.7 billion or 9.3% from R29.4 billion in March 2025 to R32.1 billion in June 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year-on-year overtime payments increased by R2.3 billion or 7.6% between June 2025 and June 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stats SA has published its latest Quarterly Employment Survey for the second quarter of 2026, recording a 4.1% increase in the average salary in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":858312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2104920137413382334","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2220643912089341","_sma_instagram_post_id":"17932654839143294","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[1439,1809],"class_list":["post-877450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-salaries","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877450","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=877450"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877463,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877450\/revisions\/877463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}