National Minimum and Award wages rising by 3.5% from 1 July

In early June, the Fair Work Commission announced its decision to increase National Minimum and Award wages by 3.5%. This includes the Awards common across our client base – namely SCHADS and the Children’s Services Award. The increase applies from the first full pay period starting on, or after, 1 July 2025. The new National Minimum Wage will be $948 per week (or $24.95 per hour).

Where Purpose supports clients with bookkeeping services, we’ll apply the relevant changes via Xero / payroll systems to ensure your staff have a seamless transition to the new rates. The full Award FY26 rates tables are available on the FairWork Commission website.

Gender undervaluation review update

In parallel, the FWC continues its program for the resolution of gender undervaluation issues in certain modern Awards. This review aims to assess Award classifications and minimum wage rates on work value grounds, to remedy potential gender-based undervaluation. The priority areas cover Awards and classifications applicable to a range of our client orgs, including:

• Early childhood education and care workers; and
  
• Disability home care workers and other social and community services workers.

On 16 April, an initial Decision [2025] FWCFB 74 was issued by the FWC. This expressed some provisional views, including that:

• There is an ‘equivalence of work value’ in all direct care functions in the classification streams in the SCHADS Award (i.e. across disability services, home care, social and community services (SACS) work, etc)
  
• That increases to the minimum Award wages are necessary for SACS employees, crisis accommodation employees and home care employees covered by the SCHADS Award. The review found that existing rates don't properly reflect the value of the work performed (in part due to historical undervaluation based on gender).  

Further conferences are now taking place in relation to the provisional views, and we await future announcements for more details. We‘ll continue to monitor developments, particularly the potential impacts for our clients with staff on the SCHADS or Children’s Services Award.

Super Guarantee (SG) rate rises to 12%

From 1 July, the SG rate will also increase from 11.5% to 12%.

For most organisations, your payroll system will automatically take care of this change. Certainly this is the case for our clients using either Xero Payroll or Employment Hero, provided automated settings are in place.

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