Aussie workers doing it tough | NEWS.com.au Business

Aussie workers doing it tough | NEWS.com.au Business EMPLOYMENT rates might still be at 30-year highs but NEWS.com.au readers complain they are doing it tough due to the increasingly high cost of living. When we reported on a survey which found the majority of Australian workers were not happy in their jobs, you told us it was because interest rate rises and tax cuts were putting too much pressure on the economy. A Gen-Y reader from Adelaide said they were educated with two degrees yet had to work two IT jobs "damn hard for a total of 48 hours a week just to break 40k, while trying to look after two other family members". "Rent is tough and affording the growing costs of food and fuel, basics, is getting harder and harder. With new rate rises and rises in the the base costs of everything, theres nothing left that even resembles disposable income at the end of the week." Another reader was also feeling the pinch. "The wage I'm on is not high in respect to the cost of living. Howard is seriously out of touch with how we are all living," they said. "Forget tax cuts, they mean more interest rate rises. Put the money where it belongs - our failing health system, transport system, eduction system. Basically the way we are heading we are going to have to get used to sub-standard conditions." A Brisbane worker said they enjoyed their profession but were increasingly stressed because of "what my salary allows me to do day to day". "The constant rise in the costs of living and the going nowhere syndrome are affecting me. I'm 33 and I'm no better off than I was when I was 23," they said.