Anecdote: I'm in Australia, salaried. And I'm getting fucked. 200+ hours over time over the course of last year. 0% pay rise. But we got $1000 stocks pre-tax which equated to a little over 0.6% pay rise. Yay /s
I'm voting with my feet though. Should be getting a job offer (hopefully!) in the next few days.
Yeah I've done a lot of unpaid overtime as well, don't even bother to count it mostly, what's the point.
But being salaried is still superior for the large majority of people. This becomes more evident the older you get, when benefits like maternity/paternity leave, long service leave, paid annual leave etc become more useful. There is also the matter of getting a loan - huge disparity based on employment status there.
Another factor is if you fall sick or can't work as usual for some reason.
Australia has laws which make it hard to get fired (unfair dismissal legislation), providing even more security to the salaried.
I'm voting with my feet though. Should be getting a job offer (hopefully!) in the next few days.