The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released a report showing that in May 2012, one in ten full-time employees earned $2,364 or more per week. It was also found that one in ten full-time employees earned $738 or less per week.

ABS Director of Labour Employer Surveys, Mike Scott said "The Employee Earnings and Hours, Australia publication is released every two years and provides statistics on employee earnings and hours worked, broken down by industry, sex and state/territory among others.

"We found that the highest average weekly total cash earnings reported for all employees were for Managers ($1,926) and Professionals ($1,438) and the lowest average weekly total cash earnings were reported for Sales workers ($607), Community and personal service workers ($707), and Labourers ($779)." Mr Scott said.

"Across industries, average weekly total cash earnings for all employees ranged from $539 in the Accommodation and food services industry to $2,388 in the Mining industry. In the Mining industry, 63 per cent of full-time adult non-managerial employees earned weekly total cash earnings of more than $2,000 per week.

"Those employees who had their pay set by award only received the lowest average weekly total earnings ($634) compared with those employees who had their pay set by individual arrangement ($1,277) and collective agreement ($1,151). Of those paid by award only, the largest proportion were Community and Personal service workers (21 per cent).

"Average weekly total cash earnings for females were lower than for males across almost all variables. For all employees, male earnings were $1,343 compared with $904 for females, while full-time adult male employees received weekly total cash earnings of an average $1,472 compared with $1,226 for full-time adult females", Mr Scott said.

Further information is available in Employee Earnings and Hours, Australia, May 2012 (cat. no. 6306.0)