Australian’s Are Saving More Than Ever: Apparently

Just now on SkyNews they are saying that the average working person in Australia is saving 19 percent of their income—made up of 9 percent in compulsory superannuation plus 10 percent of voluntary savings. Also, apparently, this is the highest every rate of savings in the history of Australia.

Well I can assure you that I am not managing 10 percent of voluntary savings!! Since Christmas—not counting the 9 percent compulsory superannuation taken from my income before I get it—I have not banked one single cent!

The point of the SkyNews item was not actually how much people are saving but rather how much they are not spending; and how this ‘not spending’ is hurting the major retail outlets. The retailers are saying that if spending does not pick up then they are going to get to a point where they will need to let thousands of employees go and will need to seriously consider the option of shutting down marginal outlets.

Another part of this problem is that people are buying much more on-line and this too is impacting the profitably of brick-and-mortar retail outlets.