Australia’s national minimum wage will increase by 5.97 per cent, with minimum award workers to receive a 4.75 per cent pay boost following the Fair Work Commission’s (FWC) annual wage review.
The new national minimum wage will rise from $24.95 per hour to $26.44 per hour. Based on a full-time 38-hour work week, it will increase from $948 per week to $1004.90 per week.
Heading into the 2025/26 financial year, the minimum wage and minimum award rate rose 3.5 per cent.
The new pay increase will come into force from 1 July 2026.
Roughly 21 per cent of Australian employees are paid at a minimum award rate, with more than two thirds of those working part-time hours according to the FWC.
Food services, health care, social assistance, retail trade, and administrative support services account for more than two thirds of modern award-reliant employees.
The FWC says most modern award-reliant employees wages, in real terms, are lower than what they were in July 2021. The Albanese government had pushed for an above-inflation pay rise for national minimum and modern award wages, while the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) asked for 3.5 per cent.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions had asked for a five per cent increase.
The raising of the national minimum wage and modern award rates follows the decision to remove junior pay rates, with the full variation to be phased in for junior workers by mid-2029.
