Engineering and overtime

[Lavers]

Afternoon all

Just seeing if there are any engineers out there mainly boilermakers, sheet metal workers and stainless steel fabricators.  I am just after info on what wages are like , job prospects and also is overtime a common thing.

I am looking at the Brisbane area, ive looked on seek but not all the advertisements show hourly rates.

 

Thanks

[Eera]

Those sort of jobs come under industrial awards - there's a sheet metal workers' award and a manufacturing and associated industries award among many.  Google them and it will show the minimum wage that he's entitled to, plus penalty rates etc (there's a *lot* of numbers in these things so be prepared to plough through a bit).  My OH was on the sheet metal workers award: his base salary was about $75k a year, but they did a 4/3 shift with 12 hour days which meant that there was penalty loadings, weekend and overtime loadings also applied which brought him up to about $110k without additional overtime outside of his shift.  Overtime wasn't particularly common as they were already doing long days, but periodically they did a night swing which was 2 to 2.5 x pay.  Bear in mind we are regional QLD and they had a fair bit of competition for tradies, but the basic award is still the same and he can't be paid less than specified.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Eera

[Lavers]

Hi Eera 

Thanks a lot for your reply that's exactly what I needed to see.  That looks like a decent wage, what is it that your OH actually does?

As you will know in engineering overtime plays a big part and currently I earn an extra £16,000 a year doing 12 hours extra a week, although I don't want to do that many extra hours if I move to aus its still nice to know that the hours are still there.

How has your OH found getting work whilst being in aus?

[Eera]

Hi Lavers.

Slightly different circumstances as the OH is Aussie born and bred; he moved from country Victoria to regional QLD and found work without any particular issue - at the time there was a huge need for tradies in regional areas (as there is increasingly now), so I can't talk directly for Brisbane but the award will outline the basics wage so if you budget for that then any increase will be a bonus - you might see places advertise as "above award wages", and that's what they are referring to.

Best of luck!

[Lavers]

Thanks again Eera 

What is it that your OH does?

Ive looked at the jobsites and a lot seem to be around the $30 - $35 mark so I will base my income around that without adding in overtime.

I looked on the sheet metal workers award but the ones I find are a few years old showing $20 an hour which seems to low.

Do you get paid holidays like you get in the Uk, I currently get 25days plus the 8 bank holidays.

 

 

 

 

[Eera]

OH is currently a mechanical fitter / sheet metal welder in the mines.  Those wages are from when he worked in town on that award.

How it worked for him is that they did (and still do in new company) rotating shifts, originally he was 4/3 12 hour day, then went to something like 5/4 10 hour day, so they got loading for the effective daily overtime, plus weekend loading, plus public holiday loading (and a heap of others like tool allowance, commute allowance etc).  So their yearly wage is forecast then divided into hours and that's what they got, so while the base salary worked out at 80k, the effective salary with all those loading factored in was a lot more.  Whether whatever company you end up with does the same thing I can't say - and it's really confusing to work out to say the least.

He got standard 4 week's hols then and 6 now (and because he's always done shifts with long breaks if he takes one week off effectively he gets 2-3 weeks' hols due to the breaks either end of the shift) but has to work through public holidays.

If you want more info please feel free to PM me and I can ask him to clarify anything.