Economy
Hong Kong's average wage rate rises 3.3% in December
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-03-24 19:23
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HONG KONG -- Hong Kong's average wage rate for all the selected industry sections surveyed rose 3.3 percent in nominal terms in December 2010 from a year ago, the Census and Statistics Department said on Thursday.
About 65 percent of the companies reported increase in average wage rates in December 2010 compared with a year ago. On the other hand, 29 percent of the companies recorded decrease in average wage rates over the same period. The remaining 6 percent reported virtually no change in average wage rates.
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As for payroll, the index of payroll per person engaged for all the industry sections surveyed increased by 3.1 percent in nominal terms in the fourth quarter of 2010 over a year earlier. After discounting the changes in consumer prices as measured by the Composite Consumer Price Index, the average payroll per person engaged increased by 0.3 percent in real terms in the fourth quarter of 2010 over a year earlier.
The government spokesman said that the year-on-year increases in average wage rate and payroll per person engaged showed some acceleration, in tandem with continued improvement in the economic and labor market situation.
As the wage increase broadly matched the pick-up in inflation rate over the period, there was only a marginal decline of 0.3 percent in real terms in December, albeit improved from the decline of 0.8 percent in September, he said.
The spokesman further pointed out that payroll per person engaged, as an indicator of the average income of workers including overtime and other irregular payments, rose marginally by 0.3 percent in real terms in the fourth quarter, reversing the 1.5 percent decline in the third quarter.