Wages growth plumbs new record lows

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By Leith van Onselen

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released its Wage Price Index for the December quarter of 2015, which revealed a continuation of soft wages growth across the economy, with annual wages growth also tracking at the lowest rate in the series’ 18 year history (see below charts).

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According to the ABS, wages grew by 0.49% (both s.a. and trend) in the December quarter. Private sector wages grew by 0.49% (both s.a. and trend) over the quarter, whereas public sector wages grew by 0.49% (s.a.) and 0.57% (trend).

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Over the year, total wages grew by just 2.16% (both s.a. and trend), with the private sector experiencing 2.00% (both s.a. and trend) growth and the public sector 2.56% (both s.a. and trend) growth.

You can see from the next chart, which plots non-seasonally adjusted wages growth on an annual basis (in order to reduce volatility), that wages growth has softened everywhere, and is especially weak in Western Australia (1.8%) and Queensland (1.9%):

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In a similar vein, wages growth has weakened across most industries, with the exception of the financial parasites (+2.8%), with yesterday’s hero, mining (1.5 YoY%), suffering the biggest downturn along with construction (1.6% YoY):

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Once again, there’s little joy in this release for workers, with wages growth continuing on the slow path.

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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.