Yes, you read that correctly — the total wages and salaries employers paid to their workers in September surpassed $100 billion.

That's according to the latest monthly employee earnings indicators released by the ABS earlier today.

All up, employers paid $103.7 billion in wages and salaries in September, making it an all-time monthly high.

Between August and September, total wages and salaries rose by 3.9% (or $3.9 billion), which has been partially attributed to some industries paying bonuses in September — but it wasn't the only reason.

The ABS also identified underlying wage growth, changes to hours worked, employment growth and periodic and one-off payments like bonuses and backpay as reasons for the multi-billion-dollar boost.

Despite that though, the ABS's head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said annual growth this year was lower than in 2023.

"Given these factors were stronger a year ago, annual growth in total wages and salaries to September of 6.3% was lower than annual growth to September 2023 of 7.3%," he said.