Average salaries have not kept pace with inflation for three years, according to the BankservAfrica Disposable Salary Index for October, released yesterday.
"This is the longest period of decline on BankservAfrica’s records for real disposable salaries data," BankservAfrica head of knowledge and risk services, Caroline Belrose, said in a statement.
According to the report, salaried employees in South Africa typically get R10 061 in their bank accounts every month. After taking inflation into account, they are poorer than three years ago.
Currently the most common take home pay is R10 061 but the average for October came to R13 413. This was 3.5% higher than the R12 954 in October 2015, without taking inflation into account. After accounting for inflation, average take home pay was 2.6% lower than a year ago.
The survey found that the most common pay band for just under 40% of South African employees was between R10 000 and R25 000 after tax and other deductions.
A total of 32% of South African earned between R4 00 to 10 000 per month while 17.7% earned less than R4 000 a month in October this year.
Nine percent of South Africans earn between R25 000 and R50 000 a month, and 1.9% over R50 000 a month.
