The public services salary agreement with government along with the increases from the back payments on April 1st 2018 has a positive effect on take-home pay.

The Head of Stakeholder Engagements BankservAfrica Shergeran Naidoo said, "Real take-home pay reached R14 076 in July from R13 611 in June".

According to Naidoo, this means that the average take-home pay hit R14 828 in nominal terms at the end of July 2018.

Mike Schüssler, the Chief Economist at Economistscoza said that the growth in take-home pay happened even though inflation surged from 4,6% in June to 5,1% in July.

On whether there will be more increases in current South African economic climate Schüssler said, "Yes, from the State-owned Enterprises and Municipal workers. However many private sectors will have below inflation increases".

The index from BankservAfrica uses a three-month moving average and looks at the lagged pay increases from other employees which impacts the whole index. This takes into account municipal employees who got a 7% increase which come into effect in August with increases back-dated July 2018.

Municipal workers that earned less than R9 000 at municipalities will receive an extra 0,5% increase in October this year.

The Private Pensions Index from BankservAfrica also showed average increases at its strongest levels since 2012.

Naidoo said that the pensions index showed that private pensions that are paid into the South African payments system reflected a real increase of 5,1%, a little lower than 5,5% in June 2018.