Award wage?

MrGW · #1 (**permalink**) 7th February 2008, 10:39 AM

Hi,

I'm hopefully coming to Melbourne soon on a working holiday visa. All being well, I think I'd like to stay longer than a year but I'm not really sure how I'll go about that. Anyways, I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

What I was wondering was I've been looking at various job sites and quite a few of them say "award" for the salary instead of saying how much it is. Could somebody please explain what this actually is?

Also, are jobs better paid in Australia than here in the UK? I work in IT but I'm thinking I wouldn't mind doing something a wee bit different for a while and am prepared to do anything really just to get started (I'm coming over with around $35000-$40000 but am aware that won't last forever).

Cheers.

kaz101 · #2 (**permalink**) 7th February 2008, 11:00 PM

Hi MrGW,

It seems to be another way of paying other than a wage and has other conditions with it.
See workplace.gov.au - Check your award or wages

I'm not completely clear on this either since I'm self-employed.

I think whether jobs are better paid will depend on what it is and where it is too.
Salary Information - Latest Pay Rates by Industry at MyCareer has some average Australian salaries and you can click and find actual jobs but I'm not sure what areas that covers.

Regards,
Karen

Sunnywa · #3 (**permalink**) 20th February 2008, 06:48 AM

Award Wage is the minimum wage that is paid as required by the Workchoices/ Union Agreements

MrGW · #4 (**permalink**) 25th February 2008, 01:34 PM

Ah thanks, I haven't been on the board in a while so hadn't checked this.

I've had someone else tell me it's a kind of minimum wage.

I assume though that rather than just one minimum wage there are different minimum wages depending on the jobs. It's just the jobs I've seen it say award aren't exactly what would be minimum wage jobs in the UK.

Also I understand that on my working holiday visa I can get an extra year if I do "seasonal work" for 3 months. Am I correct in assuming that this is hard, poorly paid work that nobody really wants to do? Just wondering if it's worth doing that for 3 months to get an extra year?

kaz101 · #5 (**permalink**) 25th February 2008, 11:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrGW

Ah thanks, I haven't been on the board in a while so hadn't checked this.

You can set up your user profile so that you get sent an email if anyone responds to your post

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrGW

Also I understand that on my working holiday visa I can get an extra year if I do "seasonal work" for 3 months. Am I correct in assuming that this is hard, poorly paid work that nobody really wants to do? Just wondering if it's worth doing that for 3 months to get an extra year?

I think that seasonal work will be harvesting etc. Around here (SE South Australia) my husband was actually thinking about doing it since it can be quite well paid now since not many people want to do it but it still needs to be done. Around here it's more pruning vines I think. You need to check out the pay and see if it's worth it to you or not.

Regards,
Karen

Sunnywa · #6 (**permalink**) 26th February 2008, 12:18 AM

MR GW
I would be very sure to check out the conditions of the working holiday visa, I am not so sure that you can extend for a further year. I was under the imperssion that you can only ever apply for 1 working holiday visa and it was valid for 12 months only......so check it out before you decide

MrGW · #7 (**permalink**) 28th February 2008, 09:16 AM

Cheers for the info.

Sunnywa, if you do 3 months seasonal work you can apply for a second working holiday visa that expires 24 months from the start of your first one, so you get a further year. This is the only way that it can be extended, I guess like Kaz said, they can't find the people to do the work so they offer this as an incentive.

It seems the work round Melbourne way is all fruit/veg picking. From what I can gather you get paid by the ammount you pick so I guess if I was good, I could make some OK money. Like I say, I'm not thinking of doing it all the time, just for the three months to enable me to extend my stay. I guess if I was on a lower wage for the first few months I could use some of my savings, I just don't want to be skint when I have to come back to England.

kaz101 · #8 (**permalink**) 28th February 2008, 08:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MrGW

I guess if I was on a lower wage for the first few months I could use some of my savings, I just don't want to be skint when I have to come back to England.

And I know this is obvious, but don't forget that the exchange works in your favour going from the UK to Australia, but works against you going from Australia to the UK.

Regards,
Karen