South African salaries improved by 5.7% in nominal terms on a year-on-year basis, according to BankservAfrica's Disposable Salary Index (BDSI) for February.
However, salaries in real-terms declined by 0.8%, due to growth being lower than February's rate of inflation of 6.3%, according to Dr Caroline Belrose, Head of Information Services at BankservAfrica.
February registered the ninth consecutive month of salary declines in real-terms. On the positive side, this was the smallest decline in months.
The average real disposable salaries reached R13 980 in February. This is the highest since September 2016 when real seasonally adjusted salaries (see the full explanation in the editor's notes below) reached R14 102.
With 12 out of the last 15 months in the BDSI time series indicating constant take-home pay declines in real terms, this is now taking a toll on retail sales where the same level of declines are being experienced as car and home sales.
"Consumer spending has been slow over the last year and is likely to remain so in the coming month or two," says Mike Schüssler, Chief Economist at Economists dotcoza.