The average wage rate for all major sectors surveyed rose 0.4% in nominal terms in June over a year earlier, the Census & Statistics Department says.

About 46% of the companies recorded some increase in average wage rates. But 40% of the companies recorded some fall in average wage rates while the remaining 14% reported almost no change.

After discounting the consumer price rise, the overall average wage rate for all the major sectors surveyed taken together fell 0.9% in real terms.

As for payroll, the index of payroll per person engaged for all the major sectors surveyed taken together grew 2.7% in nominal terms in this year's second quarter. After netting out the effect of the increase in consumer prices, the average payroll per person engaged rose 1.8% in real terms.

Security, sanitary salaries fall

For the nominal wage indices, year-on-year increases were seen in the manufacturing sector, the wholesale, retail and import-export trades, restaurants and hotels sector and the transport services sector in June, ranging from 0.4% to 1.5%.

However, the financing, insurance, real estate and business services sector, a year-on-year fall of 0.3% in nominal terms was recorded, mainly attributable to the downward adjustment in salaries of employees in security and detective services. The personal services sector also saw a dip of 0.9%, mainly attributable to the downward adjustment in salaries of employees in sanitary and similar services.

The real wage indices fell in almost all major sectors, ranging from 0.8% to 2.2%. The transport services sector was the only sector with a 0.2% rise in real wages.

As for payroll per person engaged, year-on-year increases in nominal terms were registered in almost all the major sectors in the second quarter, ranging from 1.2% to 5.1%. The community, social and personal services sector was the only one with a 0.3% drop in the payroll per person engaged.

Year-on-year increases were recorded for the real payroll indices in almost all the major sectors in the second quarter, ranging from 0.4% to 4.3% in real terms. On the other hand, a year-on-year decrease of 1.1% was registered in the community, social and personal services sector.