Higher pay rises on offer for finance and accounting

Finance and accounting practitioners have fared well in the latest round of salary surveys, receiving one of the highest pay increases across the board at 4.1 per cent.

The Australian Institute of Management’s National Salary Survey for 2011 found that while finance and accounting job families were at the high end of the pay increase spectrum, the wider finance, banking and insurance industry underperformed in the last financial year.

As a whole, the industry sector only managed an average pay increase of 3.62 per cent in 2010-11, which was lower than the Australian average of 4 per cent.

It was also one of the only industry sectors to record average salary movements lower than those in the previous year.

However, this is forecast to rise to 3.79 per cent in the coming financial year, bringing the industry back in line with other sectors.

Another interesting trend found across the board was the willingness of large companies to consider hiring staff from overseas to overcome skills shortages.

Migrant workers are currently being recruited for 12.9 per cent of finance and accounting jobs in large companies, and 15.2 per cent in small companies.

Across the board, there are also more employees willing to risk changing employers, with the average rate of voluntary staff turnover for large companies increasing from 10.3 per cent to 12.6 per cent.

This increasing volume of voluntary turnover has led to an upward spiral in businesses conducting succession planning for staff, the survey found.