Salary Spotlight
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday February 16, 2008
Personal assistant
Starting out Personal assistants, also known as PAs and executive assistants, perform administrative tasks to support managers and professionals. Workers in this sector generally have vocational training, such as the AQF Certificate III, or relevant on-the-job experience.Salary On the MyCareer website the average salary for a PA is $54,489. PayScale Australia suggests a PA with less than a year's experience would be paid $45,000. With 20 years' experience, the remuneration would be about $55,000. The best paid personal assistants work for private companies, while the worst paid work for trusts.Demographics PAs are almost exclusively female, with the Federal Government's Job Search website suggesting only 2 per cent are male. The median age is 41 years.Prospects Job prospects are average, says Job Search. Employment opportunities are expected to decline and have fallen during the past 10 years. PAs working full-time work, on average, complete 37.3 hours per week, compared with the national average of 41.8 hours.Sources: www.mycareer.com.au; www .jobsearch.com.au; www.payscale.com
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald