AWPI holds at historical high for second quarter

Airtasker’s Wage Price Index (AWPI) for Q3 FY22 has held stable at an historical high of 157.6 showing wages in Australia’s service economy are higher than ever. 

The third quarter was marked by residual impacts of Covid, excess rain and flooding and record low unemployment driving a nationwide labour shortage. All these elements are combining to sustain the AWPI at historical highs for another quarter. 

However, some categories have fallen from their peaks with hospitality 6 points lower in the three months to March 31 from 148 to 142. 

The admin and customer service category continues its impressive growth jumping 6 points from 141 in the December quarter to 147 in the March quarter. Since AWPI’s launch, wages in the admin and customer services category have recorded the largest jump, up 47 points compared to June 2019. 

While trades have come off its previous top falling 6 points quarter-on-quarter from 137 to 131 - this could be seasonal - with January a traditionally quiet time for trades.

Accounting, legal and finance has recorded the slowest wage growth since the commencement of AWPI, up 16 points since June 2019 to 116. 

AWPI records wage growth in Australia’s labour and service economy and is based on actual data generated by completed tasks transactions in the Airtasker marketplace. The Airtasker platform processes hundreds of thousands of tasks each month with a cumulative multi-million-dollar value - it’s a wealth of economic insights. 

The AWPI is based on data from completed task transactions from March 2019 to March 2022. In that short two-year period, wages have grown by 58 points. This goes to show the increased value of Tasker skills and services.

AWPI is released quarterly. You can also see and play with the dataset here.