Since everyone's going on and on about QF employee costs, I compiled the cost per employee for a basket of airlines: (Using Group consolidated accounts for each airline for 2010/2011 financial years)
QF has the highest cost per employee, but that's largely because of the AUD. SQ and Delta have a tie on the second highest cost per employee, higher than NZ, much higher than BA and CX.
CX's cost per employee would look low right now (30% lower than SQ) because the USD, to which the HKD is pegged to, has depreciated by that amount against the SGD in the past 5 years. If the SGD:HKD rate stayed the same, SQ and CX would have the same costs per employee.
In fact, using 2006 exchange rates, SQ would have the second lowest cost per employee in that basket of airlines, instead of having the second highest. BA in turn would have the highest cost per employee (based on 2006 exchange rates) due to the relative strength of the pound then.
In local currency terms, QF employees have not faced a wage blowout. However measured in USD, they have, and any Australian employee's cost would look very expensive by world standards.
SQ's costs per employee also look very expensive compared to its peers, and it is no surprise considering that after the AUD, the SGD has been the best performing currency against the USD in the Asia Pacific region in the past 5 years. In fact from the people I know in the aerospace/aviation circles in SIN, the cost of a skilled engineer in Singapore these days is more than the USA.