Today Jennifer Leinhart of CostMine sent me these two volumes:
In future blog postings, I will write more about the salary and wages listed in these volumes. For now only a brief overview and comparison to Australian mine salaries.
Here from Misco, an Australian job site, are some of the astounding Australian mining incomes:
Superintendents
Managers
As it is always more fun to look at the top, let us summarize this by concluding that mine managers in Australia are earning about $250K (Australian dollars). Let us compare this to managers in U.S. coal, metal, and industrial mineral mines.
The average U.S. coal mine general manager made $182K last year. The average U.S. coal mine manager made $140K last year. Almost $100K less than in Australia, give or take fluctuating exchange rates. Astounding!
But wait. It gets worse or better depending on your perspective. The average U.S. general manager of a metal and industrial mineral mine made a mere $150K last year. And the poor old mine manager made a paltry $107K in 2011. That is almost $150K difference (give or take exchange rates).
True it is terrible expensive to live in Australia. So maybe they need that extra money to survive — or at least to live a managerial life style.
I have no information about comparable taxes in the U.S. and Australia. Would the cost of living, taxes, and exchange rate level things? I would appreciate your insight in this regard.
5 Comments
Torger
Cost of gasoline in Perth is 40% higher than Tucson, but not so much different than in Seattle or SanDiego. Housing looks much more expensive in Perth too, but it is not apples to apples when comparing to Tucson – should compare to Seattle or SanDiego, then the real-estate difference is more comparable with what you get in Perth, and it’s not so much of a cost difference. Some of these numbers are larger than I imagined, but not sure how accurate either. The Mine, Hydromet, and Concentrator (Mill) Manager, these are Process Managers, where I work in the USA, may as well call it Tucson, are making $150k+ and get $50k+ annual bonus. I’d say the average is at least $250k for the ‘Site Executives’, but Superintendents here are much less than the numbers for Australia. The Superintendents here answer to Process Managers who answer to Site Executives. Note however that I am speaking of my experience at only (1) mining company, so I’m no expert. A Chief Engineer here is about the same as a Superintendent, although there can be much variance based on years of service and industry expertise. My grade is one grade below a Chief Engineer, and with 20 yrs as mechanical engineer, most of it NOT in mining, my take was $120k last year. With some agressiveness, I can be a Chief Engineer soon, again, same as a Superintendent here, then my take will be $150k. Another variable though is that many of us in the USA live near the mine site in small towns, and a house I would be very happy with is only $250k. Furthermore, we have vacation homes, often suitable for retirement, not far away in mountains or near lakes or on rivers that may cost us less than $150k, and, millions and millions of acres of public forest where we can go hunting, fishing, or camping for almost no cost.
WOTAN
Let’s talk philosophy for a moment – from not just 60,000 feet, but higher, such as 200,000 feet. The USA is fundamentally very different than AUS or the UK or the rest of EUROPE. For example, those millions and millions of acres of recreation land we have. But even more than that, we have the opportunity to own beautiful pieces of private property in rural areas, sometimes in mountains like the Rockies, or the Ozarks, or the Applachians, etc, and there is a tremendous variety of cost to those properties, some very nice places that cost less than $100k. Most of us live near the mine sites in smaller towns where we have a very different lifestyle than the people of Perth, Sydney, New York, Chicago, SanDiego, or even Phoenix. These smaller towns often have small but still very real universities, plenty of quality resturaunts, sports bars, and pubs, decent hospitals and plenty of dentists, and often have places for outdoor recreation that can be reached in the evening after work, and very easily on the weekends, and still small but much larger towns usually not more than 2 hrs drive time away. The kids have lots of things to do including athletic activities with their schools, swimming pools, and more video game rooms than they need. Gents from outside the USA, even to some extent our neighbors in Canada, don’t quite understand the intrinsic value of all that.
I once worked with a PhD who was ‘educated’ at Oxford University, this was in Detroit, and he was completely unaware that Michigan had wild animals such as coyote. Uh, Michigan is nearly the size of the UK, and there is everything including Elk, Moose, 700 lb Black Bears, an estimated population size of 800,000 white tail deer (about 200 lbs), 150 lb wolves, 200 lb mountain lions, and 12,000 lakes we call inland lakes – as opposed to the Great Lakes on which 10s of 1000s of ocean-going ships travel each year to reach the grain storage facilities in Minnesota and other major cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, etc. I own 30 acres in a beautiful rural area, at the end of the road which means I have privacy, and the cost of this land with a large but simple home is $90,000.
Google up some info on Marquette, Michigan, with iron mines nearby, Silver City, New Mexico, with copper mines nearby, and Show Low, Arizona, where people from Tucson and Phoenix drive just 3 hrs for weekend get-aways and buy retirement homes, again, at widely varying cost. Take a look at Elcho, Nevada and the surrounding attractions. We have some of our largest coal mines just 2 hours drive time from the Black HIlls and the Bighorn Mountains in the west, and many coal miners live right in the beautiful Appalachians in the east. Some of us are less than 2 hrs drive time from Las Vegas many others are less than 2 hrs flight time to ‘Vegas’, yet we live in those aforementioned smaller towns close to the mine sites. This is why you see us with our pickups and big suvs – we use them to pull our boats and jet-skis and snowmobiles and quads around to all these places of outdoor recreation. There is no doubt within the USA a vast difference between the urban dwellers of the bigger cities and those of us who work and live in rural america – we built this nation and they ride our coattails, and we will NOT be turned into another Europe just because the under-educated from Oxford and Harvard universities have no clue what the USA is all about. We are NOT subjects of the global bankers and global merchants of London and New York – we never were and we never will be – learn something?
C Henn
Cost of living is about 30% higher and the wages you are showing are on the low end and represent cash only. Add super annuation of 9% and benefits. Australian companies tend to have a few more staff employees as well so while they work hard do not put in the crazy hours that Canadian companies require.
M_emond
Cost of living in Australia is very high compared to US. I’m from Canada but living in Perth. Compared to Toronto, cost of living is about 30% more on average. Some cities are considerably more (Sydney and Melbourne for example). If you use Perth WA and Tucson AZ as a comparative, rents are 40% lower, groceries 25% lower and entertainment (restaurant, movies, etc) 55% in a mid sized US city compared to Australia. To buy an average 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house in a Perth middle class suburb is between AUD$800k and 1.2M + stamp duty ( a tax on the sale of the property whihc can be about 75K for a $1M home). Average mortgage rate here is about 6.5%. The salaries sure look nice but on average the cost of living is way higher. Check out http://www.numbeo.com for a cost of living comparision.
Alex
Hey Jack,
The salary tax rate in Australia is progressive. After 150k AUD, the rate is 48-49%. Effective tax rate for a 250k salary is 43%. You will need to add another 6-9% of tax based on the state you live.
Admitably, you can claim a host of tax deductions for partner, child expenses and of work related expenses.
I used the Australian tax office calculator to provide you with the estimation.(www.ato.gov.au).
Cost of living is a major concern for the two major mining states (Western Australia and Queensland).
Average grocery bill is 50-80 dollars a week per person.(My own experience)
Average house price is 420k. The influx of people along with limitations in housing are the main cause.
The Cardbon tax regime is expected to add 5-8% cost to living expenses on top of inflation next year.
Hope this helps
Alex