Total wages and salaries paid by employers grew by $1 billion dollars between February and March as seasonal bonuses flowed into workers’ paychecks.

Australian employers paid workers $104.8 billion in March 2025, ABS’ Monthly Employee Earnings Indicator (MEEI) showed, up $1 billion from the month prior.

The March spike in wage growth was partially driven by periodic bonuses paid out in March in industries such as mining, wholesale trade and financial services, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said.

“The total wages and salaries paid by employers reached a series high of $104.8 billion in March 2025. Wages and salaries typically peak in March before falling in April, a seasonal pattern observed in previous years,” Sean Crick, ABS head of labour statistics, said.

The MEEI analyses payroll data to estimate the total salary amounts paid to Australian workers, without adjusting for changes to workforce composition. This differs from the Wage Price Index (WPI), which seeks to measure wage growth for the same jobs over time.

The MEEI grew by 5.8 per cent over the 12 months to March 2025, while the WPI grew by 3.4 per cent.

Mining saw the largest month-on-month increase from February to March 2025, with total wages growing by 8.3 per cent, or $318 million.

On the other hand, the professional, scientific and technical services sector – to which accounting belongs – saw the largest decrease, with total pay falling by $215 million month on month.

Annual wage growth was led by healthcare and social assistance, which saw a total increase of $1.1 billion over the past year. The next fastest-growing sectors were public administration and safety ($0.6 billion) and construction ($0.6 billion).

Wage growth in the March quarter was largely driven by new public enterprise agreements, the ABS said upon releasing WPI data. Further wage growth is expected throughout 2025 after the Fair Work Commission awarded higher pay to female-dominated sectors in a bid to offset historical gender-based devaluation of work.

“Jobs covered by enterprise agreements contributed to over half of all quarterly growth, for the first time since September 2020,” Michelle Marquardt, ABS head of prices statistics, said of the WPI.

RSM economist Devika Shivadekar said that the March wage boost has posed a mixed picture for businesses and the economy, as businesses remain squeezed by persistently high operational costs.

“On one hand, rising wages can support consumer spending and boost demand, but on the other, higher labour costs may squeeze margins, particularly for those sectors already facing cost pressures,” she said.

“It highlights the balancing act many SMEs are facing, particularly in terms of labour input costs, even as broader inflation comes back towards the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) target range.”