Young people could get a massive pay boost in 'totemic' wage case
Feb 9 2026
ABC News.
Companies that rely on young staff are fighting to keep paying 18 to 20-year-olds less.
In short:
Millions of young people could get a pay boost due to a wages case disputing "junior" rates.
Business warns it could cause a collapse in employment.
What's next?
The Fair Work Commission has finished hearings but has not announced when it will hand down its decision.
Hard-working young people are sweating on a key wage case that could boost their pay, while businesses warn it could cause a collapse in employment.
"Junior pays rates" apply to people below the age of 21 in agreements covering sectors that employ a lot of young people: retail, fast food, and pharmacy.
Those discounts meant 18-year-olds are paid 70 per cent of the award rate, 80 per cent for 19-year-olds and 90 per cent for 20-year-olds.
Twenty-year-old Ben Walker has worked at a Woolworths supermarket in Sale, in Victoria's Gippsland region, for the past four years.
"I have a car, I pay board at home, I've got a motorbike as well. I'm paying adult fuel with still a child's wage," he said.
A portrait of a young man standing outside a supermarket loading bay.
Ben Walker's age means his employers pay him less than older people with less experience.
The high staff churn rate in supermarkets means he often works alongside colleagues who are less experienced but older than 21.
"I don't think it is fair — the fact that I've had more experience and yet I still get paid a little less," Mr Walker said.
'People won't be hired for jobs'
Some of our largest and most public businesses are worried about the impact of a case they have called "totemic" to the structure of employment.
In many cases, big employers like McDonalds and Coles are a stepping stone to full-time employment, with Woolworths alone providing about one in eight Australians with their first job.
Innes Willox says changes to junior pay rates may make it harder for young people to get jobs.
Ai Group's Innes Willox speaks on behalf of his members, who are employers, and says any big shift that increases staff costs will have dire consequences for young people.
"If there are substantial changes that makes it incredibly difficult for employers to hire young people," he said.
"Young people won't be hired for jobs, and that will be to the detriment of them … the workforce and the economy as a whole."
He said it went directly to the compensation businesses had to give to employees based on what they could do.
"Their output, their contribution to the workplace, the fact that they are new to the workforce, they're learning new skills," Mr Willcox said.
"It's often the first start into the workforce for a young person."
The same was said about women, union argues
Unions do not buy it.
"I wasn't born at that time but when women were paid less than men for doing exactly the same work, I know they [employers] argued exactly the same," said Sally McManus, secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
A woman in a suit talking to the press flacked by men in suits.
Sally McManus says life does not cost young people less, so they should not be paid less.
Ms McManus compared the cheaper rates paid to juniors — and employers' fears of change — to the situation more than 50 years ago, when paying women less for doing the same work as men was first outlawed.
"[Business] said if women got paid the same for doing the same, well, there'd be less women in the workforce, we'd hire men rather than women — and that turned out to be totally untrue."
In recent years, Australia has hit record-high levels of workforce participation, with both men and women toiling at levels never seen before.
Adulthood is 18 but full wages start at 21
Advocates argue that at 17 you can enlist in the armed forces, and at 18 you are legally entitled to vote, drive, smoke and drink alcohol.
But youth wages continue to crimp the earnings of those below 21.
Jayda was excited about her first pay cheque, then she looked at the hourly rate
Girl in school uniform, striped shirt, grey sweater, nose ring, black hair tied, slight smile. Graphic of money, coffee, chips.
Teens question why 18-year-olds are not paid as adults at work when they can vote and drink alcohol.
Decades ago, some of those rights did not begin until people turned 21, but that has been wound back.
Ms McManus said changing wage laws would bring them into line with reality.
"Back last century in the 1970s, 21 used to be the legal adulthood for a whole lot of things, and we got rid of that," she said.
"We made it 18 for everything except for how people are paid.
"You've got to draw the line somewhere about when someone's an adult, and where you're an adult, you should get paid the same."
Societal trends have also changed.
More people now complete a higher level of schooling in comparison to 20 years ago.
In 2021, 58.4 per cent of people 17 years and over reported completing year 12, compared with 39.1 per cent in 2001.
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