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Base Salary

2.1 Base Salary

The term Base Salary describes the full-time annualised salary paid to an employee. It includes salary sacrifice amounts (including pre–tax employee superannuation contributions made by salary sacrifice) and excludes bonuses and other benefits.

The median Base Salary movement for all APS classifications from 2012 to 2013 was 3.0%.

The non-SES classifications median Base Salary increased by 2.9% and the SES classifications median Base Salary increased by 3.8% from 2012 to 2013.

Table 2.1 provides 2012 and 2013 Base Salary movement. The greatest increase in median Base Salary was at the Graduate classification with a 6.9% increase. This increase was caused by a shift in the median due to a reduction in the number of graduates in a large agency whose base salary sat below the 2012 median. Generally, the Graduate classification only applies to an employee for one year, so Graduates from one Report to the next are not the same employees – that is, individual Graduates did not receive a 6.9% increase in salary.

The APS 5 and EL 2 classifications had the lowest median movement from 2012 to 2013, both with 2.5%.

The result of low employee mobility over the last few years is that a large proportion of APS employees are remaining at the same classification in the same agency. When employees remain at the same classification for long periods, they are likely to have reached the top of the salary scale for their classification. This is underpins the general trend in the value of the median base salary at the non-SES classification levels being close to the third quartile value.

The SES 3 classification was the only classification that reported a reduction in the value of the 95^th percentile in 2013 compared with 2012.

Figure 2.1: Median Base Salary by classification

Source: Table 2.1

Figure 2.2 Base Salary range by classification: Graduate to EL 1

Source: Table 2.1

Note: Refer to Section 7 (remuneration findings by classification) for the minimum and maximum values for each classification.

Note: Refer to Appendix A.2 for notes on interpreting box plots.

Figure 2.3: Base Salary range by classification: EL and SES

Table 2.1: Base Salary by classification
Class.	Employees		P5		Q1		Median			Q3		P95		Average
Class.	2012 n	2013 n	2012 n	2013 n	2012 n	2013 n	2012 n	2013 n	change %	2012 n	2013 n	2012 n	2013 n	2012 n	2013 n	change %
Source: 2012 and 2013 APS Remuneration Reports
Graduate	1649	1346	52327	53652	55606	57513	56944	60871	6.9	61036	63236	63443	65029	57860	60065	3.8
APS 1	1147	1164	35812	36886	39722	42334	43944	45263	3.0	46807	48533	48241	49697	43197	45065	4.3
APS 2	3731	3544	47077	49009	50758	52291	52998	54588	3.0	53752	55096	54780	56435	52142	53752	3.1
APS 3	18743	17548	53623	55251	56683	59318	59677	61512	3.1	60671	64292	60755	62560	58475	60492	3.4
APS 4	30279	29656	60811	63058	64285	66977	66923	69038	3.2	67222	69239	68088	70144	65736	67995	3.4
APS 5	21268	21191	67592	69185	70511	72806	72487	74331	2.5	73017	75208	74167	76407	71688	73885	3.1
APS 6	32527	32468	75543	78054	80220	84318	84478	86844	2.8	85669	88867	86779	89400	83098	85954	3.4
EL 1	28355	28117	95865	99769	101366	105362	104825	108013	3.0	105607	108796	112933	115655	104090	107410	3.2
EL2	13146	13050	115390	120325	125608	129878	130460	133777	2.5	133647	137188	146676	151097	130967	135236	3.3
SES 1	2022	1939	149703	155035	165555	171348	172000	178330	3.7	185032	191220	205897	211383	175057	181571	3.7
SES2	579	564	193846	201111	214596	221580	221266	229949	3.9	235746	243841	260116	267920	225174	233479	3.7
SES 3	126	119	251534	266855	276298	287350	282931	300000	6.0	314356	323787	412492	389949	301639	310606	3.0
Total	154622	150706