Money. Since beginning consideration of your compatibility with Australia, I’ve discussed two of the three traditional areas of concern: degree of neatness and sex. I took the easy one’s first.
Money is the tough one. First, flying to an Aussie destination from the US will cost you couple of thousand at least, maybe much more, for a round-trip ticket, and then you’ll need food (expensive) and lodging (very expensive).
It helps a little, of course, that your US dollar will still get you an Australian dollar and nine cents more, and maybe you are one of the fortunate few who don’t have to worry about such things. A “New York Times” story this past week said there are in the world today 2,000 superyachts (120 to more than 500 feet long, valued in millions) and about 200,000 people could afford to buy one of them.
Are you more interested in the minimum wage than the price of yachts? You could be in luck here. Is the minimum wage still about $5.50 per hour in Texas and up to around $10 in one or more states of the US? I know middle- and low-income earners in the US have been losing ground.
It doesn’t seem so here. Aussies prefer to speak in terms of minimum wage per week and a week is counted as 38 hours of work. The current, Australia-wide minimum wage is $522.12 or $13.74/hour (US$12.60).
The Australian Fair Pay Commission (AFPC) wants to give the lowest-paid workers here a $26/week raise to $548.12/week or $14.42/hour (US$13.23). Unions want more. The Rudd government is expected to decide soon.
No worries, though, if you’re between 18 and 45 years of age, and your training or experience qualifies you for a 457, skilled migrant worker, visa. That lets you stay four years, at least, and according to this morning’s newspapers, you won’t be worrying about the minimum wage.
“The Australian” has a front-page story today by Paul Maley and Matthew Franklin saying Australia’s full-employment economy is currently paying skilled migrants $15,000 more per year than the average Australian earns.
Here are a few facts from that story:
1. In 2006-07, the average skilled migrant’s salary was $71,600 (US$65,682) while the average salary for all Aussie workers, skilled and unskilled, was $55,500 (US$50,913).
2. In mining, 457 visa holders averaged $95,200 (US$87,332) last year but more recent figures indicate a rise to an average salary of $103,700 (US$95,129).
3. Some 457 visa holders, though, union officials say, are effectively earning much less than market rates for their work in deplorable conditions, so all is not rosy.
Location matters everywhere, of course, and salaries are far less in non-mining, remote area, especially among Aboriginals in outback communities.
If you’re willing to travel around working part time doing seasonal work like picking fruit, there’s another option available for you. It’s the “working holiday visa” and it will let you be here for up to 12 months.
Another option that could allow you to be here for 12 months doing seasonal work like picking fruit, is the “working holiday visa,” and there are lots of backpacker hotels offering cheap lodging.
For lots more visa information click here.
If you’re planning to sail into Sydney Harbour in your yacht, of course, no worries. Here, as in the US, money opens lots of doors. If you have some extra cash, bank savings accounts without term limits will pay you about 10 per cent interest.
So, here it is: in regard to money, as with sex and degrees of neatness, your compatibility with Australia, your ability to form and maintain a long-term relationship with this “lucky country,” depends on who you are.
Kristi and I came here on a 457 skilled worker visa in 2005, we bought a small house and became permanent residents in 2006, and we’re living on one salary without much stress, in part because of the national health care plan that lifts away most of the insurance-premium burden we carried in the US.
We know we’re fortunate, indeed, especially now that the costs of renting or buying places to live have shot up.
When we arrived, we thought we’d missed out on “the good old days” of the previous decade, when you could get up to two Aussie dollars for an American one and real estate was ever-so-much cheaper.
Now 2005 looks like the good old days. Whenever you arrive anywhere, you’ll find those eager to tell you how much better things used to be.
Maybe it’s best to assume that these are the good old days. Could be, you know.
There’s an old saying about travel: “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Maybe there’s a corrolary: “Whenever you get there, that’s the time.”
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