nitpicker: Of course cost per employee doesn't tell even part of the story. However I just presented the information as it is. What I personally found interesting was that SQ has higher costs per employee than BA, NZ, CX and are on par with Delta - bearing in mind the American carriers also constantly claim their workforce is too expensive and Delta themselves use Singapore MROs to maintain their A330s.
While QF does get the vast majority of its revenue in AUD, on international routes, it is competing with airlines who have costs in a foreign currency and revenue in AUD. QF has costs in AUD and revenue in AUD.
Of course it doesn't help that QF is using aging 747s on international routes, and in any currency that will be an expensive venture compared to A380s and 777s!
Labour costs are definitely not the be all and end all. If not, SQ should have lost money for the last 10 years with costs per employee 2.5x that of MAS.