Approximate normal hourly wages in Australia?

[pete]

I just got a subscription to the Australian Model Engineering magazine and checked out a few of the advertisers web sites out of curiosity. Australias prices seem very high. One example would be for Sherline equipment and accesories $$$$. A comparison of what an Australian dollar is worth against the Canadian dollar is easily obtained using Goggle, But without having a general idea of what would be considered a average hourly pay rate it's hard to judge how bad people in this hobby are getting shafted. Obviously every job is different but a general idea of what someone makes per hr. in a blue collar industry would be helpfull. I work in the mining industry as a heavy equipment operator so anyone that does the same in Australia would be ideal for a comparison. Obviously this question is of no great importance but as I said I am curious.

Pete

 

[Tin Falcon]

Not an ausie but will this help
http://www.payscale.com/research/AU/Job=Heavy_Equipment_Operator/Hourly_Rate
Tin

 

[pete]

Marv,
Sorry about posting in the questions and answers section but as I thought it was slightly on topic in regards to equipment costs it would be ok. No big deal.

Tin, LOL, I had no idea that a website you posted a link to existed,Thanks for looking that up. Guess you really can find anything on Google. Hourly rate for my job is roughly in the same ball park to maybe a bit low until you factor in that an Australian dollar is worth .89 cents Canadian. I've always thought equipment costs in Canada were fairly high compared to prices in the U.S. but for any Australian members here, You have my deepest sympathy.

Pete

 

[mklotz]

Marv,
Sorry about posting in the questions and answers section but as I thought it was slightly on topic in regards to equipment costs it would be ok. No big deal.

No need to apologize. It's a judgement call at best and it will be seen here just as well as it would have been in Q&A.

 

[pete]

Marv,
I think your right.

Pete

 

[Maryak]

Pete,

I agree with your observation about how much more we pay for our bits and pieces here compared to the US and Canada. Most of this, "extra," money ends up in the hands of the faceless middle men, (Importers and Distributors). I attempted a similar comparison between Oz and the UK and if you think we are being ripped off then our European colleagues are being gouged down to the bone.

Best Regards
Bob

 

[pete]

Bob,
While I'd agree (and would be stupid if I didn't) About your being ripped off. I have read and have maybe been misinformed that Australia does have very high government import tariffs. This may have something to do with your high costs. Yeah, I just heard a few days ago about the U.K. increasing the VAT from "only" 17% to 20%.

After seeing what your Sherline authorised dealer wants for this equipment and if I lived in Australia and wanted to buy this equipment then I would certainly consider trying to import it directly from Sherline. The paperwork/customs broker part is certainly a pain but who knows, The cost savings might make it well worth while. But again if the government tariffs are real high you may gain nothing.

On a side note tho, I am enjoying the 3 Aussie M.E. magazines I've recieved so far. If they continue to hold my interest then I'll certainly resubscribe.

Pete

 

[HS93]

I have recentley returnd from a month in Perth AUS , I was supprised at the price of RC equipment as it was one of the few things I could compare acuratley, at least +50 % compared to uk prices for equipment from the states or from hong kong, talking to a few modelers out there they get there stuff direct from the uk as its cheaper even with postage, spoke to a shop and they seemed to think it was the price they had to pay to have it shipped to Aus ,when I said it was a shorter run for a lot of the stuff to Aus than the UK they just said it's prob taxes then, I saw a few Aus made desktop steam plants (simmilar to Mamod) that are now avalable in the uk that where at a lot more expensive in Aus as well so I dont know why things are so dear there.

Peter

 

[bob ward]

Pete, to answer your first question first, minimum wage here is around AUD15 per hour + benefits for full time employees or AUD19 for casuals, ie no benefits. A medium skilled blue collar worker, say a welder or an auto mechanic, is probably on AUD25 to 30 + benefits. Self employed tradesman such as a carpenter are charging AUD50 to 60.

As to why machine tool prices are high here compared to US/Canada/UK, I believe that is due to the relatively small size of our market, there just isn't the volume of sales and competition between suppliers to keep prices down. Low volume stuff is always more expensive than high volume.

As an illustration of the small market and low volume, we don't have chains of Grizzlys, Encos or Harbour Freights, there is only one National machinery supplier, a company called Hare & Forbes who run 5 large warehouses to service the whole country. No one has bothered to set up in competition to them, if someone could see a dollar in it I'm sure it would have happened some time ago.

Distribution costs tend to be high because of the distances involved, think of 22M people living around the edges of a country the size of the US.

Government taxes, mainly a 10% GST/VAT/sales tax don't play a large part in the high prices.

We do grit our teeth at some of the prices we have to pay, but fortunately, at least on the smaller stuff that is mailable, we can buy overseas and still land it here cheaper than local prices.

 

[pete]

Hs93 and Bob,
Thanks for the input. Yes I can fully understand the large country/small population as Canada is larger than the U.S. yet the last population figures I can remember are we have 30 million. What saves us I guess is the close proximity to the U.S. I still import the largest majority of my tooling from the U.S. and find it cheaper than buying thru Canadian machine tool suppliers.
Somebody or Everybody in Australia is making a huge profit ripping you guys off.

Pete

 

[bp]

Its not directly relevant, but 25 or so years ago I ran a small business importing and retailing by mail order, items of interest to free flight aeromodellers. One of the lines that I brought in was also imported by a large importer/wholesaler and was sold by them, wholesale at approximately 3 (THREE) times the cost that I was making a reasonable profit on. They threatened me with a injunction if I didn't stop trading that line.
So someone somewhere is making a lot of money out of Australia's isolation.
Theres a lot of greedy bar stewards out there.
cheers
Bill Pudney
Adelaide, Australia

 

[pete]

BP,
In some ways I regret starting this thread as it probably doesn't help any Australian members here to be reminded yet again of the high costs they pay.

Pete

 

[Maryak]

Pete,

A bit of research has revealed the following:

Chinese price of lathe $US 500
China transport @ 10% = $US 550 FOB
FOW Oz = $US 1100 (SWAG)
Import duty @ 5% = $US 1155
GST(VAT) @ 10% = $US 1270
Landed price to buyer = $AU 1410
Cost + 50% for retailer = $AU 2115

Retail price of similar lathe $AU 3465

Difference = $1350 which goes to the mysterious middle men.

Interesting...............................

Best Regards
Bob

 

[T70MkIII]

After seeing what your Sherline authorised dealer wants for this equipment and if I lived in Australia and wanted to buy this equipment then I would certainly consider trying to import it directly from Sherline. The paperwork/customs broker part is certainly a pain but who knows, The cost savings might make it well worth while. But again if the government tariffs are real high you may gain nothing.

I bought my X2 mill, mini-lathe and tooling from an Australian eBay store, saving several hundered dollars. I suspect they do exactly what you suggest. The retailers may eventually feel some pressure to lower prices as more people start buying big items through ebay, or ordering on-line directly from the US.

Bob - that just blows me away!

 

[pete]

Bob,
Holy crap that is grossly expensive. $500 US. as of 10 min. ago is $517.35 Canadian, I can take a very enjoyable 3 hr. drive down to Grizzlys head office in Bellingham Washington, Buy a $500 US lathe for that $517.35 Canadian, Cross the border and pay the about to be introduced HST of 12%.
$517.35 X 12%= $579.43 There are no dutys to be paid for machine tools or their accesories imported between the US and Canada. Even if I was driving a huge gas hog of a truck let's say that would add $200 on top of the total.
$779.43 in Canadian funds or $865.16 in Australian at yesterdays exchange rate.
At your cost of $3465 that is roughly $3121.62 Canadian.
MY GOD, I HAD NO IDEA WHAT YOU ACTUALLY HAD TO PAY VERSES WHAT WE DO.

Pete

 

[Jadecy]

I never saw the figures or took the time to figure it out but I always wondered why I sell so much stuff to OZ. It makes more sense now! I thought USA taxes and prices were bad sometimes but we have it very good. I guess I better watch what I complain about!

 

[Maryak]

Pete,

The price for a basic Seig lathe in China is AFAIK around $US100.

Best Regards
Bob

 

[BAH101]

When I was working out of Melbourne a couple of years ago, a co-worker was going to import an old ute back to Canada. He was going to ship it in a sea container, cost $2500 CDN. It is shipped by volumne, not weight. I think the cost to ship a helicopter was $20000 one way, it was too wide for one container flat rack so it took two container spaces and was stacked on top, so it was more expensive.
My point is, shipping is not a big expense.
Bryan

 

[Maryak]

It is shipped by volumne, not weight.
Bryan

Usually the shipping charge is by whichever is the more expensive. i.e. lead would be charged by weight as you could easily fit the payload limit in a 20ft shipping container with plenty of volume left over, a car by volume, because only one would fit in a 20ft container so in both these cases, you pay for the whole box.

My associates export a lot of wine and packing all the different sized cartons into a container is an art, to maximise the volume whilst keeping the weight within the containers payload.

Best Regards
Bob

 

[tmuir]

Big heavy stuff like my big lathe and X2 mill I had to buy locally.
But I find its usually cheaper for me to buy 'lighter' stuff from the UK or USA and pay for the postage.
I wanted a Sherline lathe to be my middle sized lathe bewteen my watchmakers and Chinese lathe and so I ened up buying one second hand from the US and paying around $200 US to get it posted to me. Even though its second hand and I need to replace a few parts it will work out I saved myself betwen $600 and $800 OZ than buying new locally.

Sooner or later the retailers in OZ are going to have to wake up to how much they are overcharging us or they will go out of business as more and more people buy from the internet overseas.