Wages Are Up. Here Is How to Make Your Workforce Work Harder for the Money.
Three months after the Fair Work Commission's 4.75% wage increase took effect, businesses in industrial and trade sectors are feeling it. The smart response is not to cut headcount. It is to hire more deliberately.
From 1 July 2026, the Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review decision took effect across Australia, lifting modern award minimum rates by 4.75% and the National Minimum Wage to $26.44 per hour. For the approximately 2.8 million award-reliant workers this covers, it is a meaningful improvement to take-home pay. For businesses employing them, it is a real and immediate increase to their cost base.
Three months in, the impact is landing unevenly. Businesses with lean, well-matched teams are absorbing it with relative ease. Those carrying roles that were never quite right, or running headcount based on habit rather than genuine demand, are feeling the squeeze more acutely.
October is a good moment to look honestly at which situation your business is in, and what it means for the hiring decisions ahead.
The Answer Is Not Hiring Less. It Is Hiring Better.
The instinct when labour costs rise is to tighten hiring, defer decisions, and run leaner on headcount. That instinct is understandable, but it carries a cost that does not always appear on the same spreadsheet as the wage bill.
According to the Ai Group, hiring difficulty across Australian employers sits at around 45% in mid-2026, with the challenge concentrated in skilled and trade roles. A business that defers a hire in an already-tight skills market often finds the position harder to fill six weeks later, not easier. And the productivity drain of running a team shorthanded during that period rarely gets measured against the cost that was being avoided.
The more effective response to rising wage costs is to make each hire count more: better role definition before the search begins, more rigorous matching against what the business genuinely needs, and a probationary or temp-to-permanent pathway that reduces the risk of a costly early exit.
"When labour costs go up, the cost of a bad hire goes up with it. What we are seeing with clients who are navigating this well is that they are being much more specific about the brief before they start. A clear role, a realistic brief, and a process that moves quickly once the right candidate is identified. That combination is what separates the businesses filling roles successfully from the ones cycling through candidates and wondering what went wrong."
Flexible Staffing as a Cost Management Tool
One of the most practical responses to a higher permanent wage base is a more deliberate use of flexible and temporary staffing to manage peaks, projects, and roles where demand is not yet stable enough to justify a permanent commitment.
This is not about avoiding fair pay. Award rates apply equally to temporary workers. It is about matching the type of employment arrangement to the genuine nature of the work. A seasonal surge in warehouse output does not require a permanent hire. A project that runs for twelve weeks does not need an open-ended employment relationship. Getting that match right is one of the most effective ways to keep labour costs aligned with actual output rather than running ahead of it.
Q4 Is the Right Time to Reset Your Approach
October sits at the start of the most active hiring quarter of the calendar year for most industrial and trade businesses. Demand is building toward the end of year, project pipelines are filling, and the businesses that move decisively now will have the teams in place that others are still searching for in November.
In a higher-wage environment, the businesses that come out ahead are not those that hire the most. They are those that hire the most deliberately: clear on what they need, realistic about what they can offer, and working with a recruitment partner who understands the market well enough to bring them candidates worth paying for.
That is exactly what Express Employment Professionals is here for. We work with businesses across Australia and New Zealand every day to take the guesswork out of hiring: pre-screened candidates matched to your brief, a process that moves at your pace, and a team that understands the industrial and trade market you are operating in. Whether you are reviewing your workforce mix heading into Q4, navigating a role that has been hard to fill, or thinking ahead to 2027, we are ready to help you get it right.
Fair Work Commission, Annual Wage Review 2026 Decision, June 2026 · Business Chamber Queensland, Annual Wage Review 2026: Fair Work Commission Awards 4.75% Increase, June 2026 · Ai Group, Australia's Economic and Labour Market Outlook 2026-27, 2026 · ABS, Labour Force Australia, July 2026 · Jobs and Skills Australia, Survey of Employers who Recently Advertised (SERA), March Quarter 2026