Wages & salaries

Our workforce rose by 11 per cent to about 35,000 during 2006.  The majority of the workforce remains concentrated in Australia/New Zealand and North America.

Although this is not a labour intensive activity, payments to labour represent an important injection of capital in the economy, particularly at the local and regional level.  In 2006, we paid US$ 2,658 million in wages and salaries, a 15 per cent increase from 2005.  Seventy nine per cent of these payments took place at the local level of the operations, 14 per cent at the state or regional level, and a further six per cent elsewhere in the country.  Only one per cent was paid at the international level.