Australian wages become a ward of the state

Wednesday 13 November 2019

Yesterday’s labour price index for the September quarter, released by the ABS, confirmed that the public sector is driving wage growth across the Australian economy:

As shown above, public sector wages grew by 2.5% in the year to September, versus a 2.2% increase across the private sector.

This continues a long-running trend, with real public sector wages growing by 14.9% since June 2002, versus growth of only 8.3% across the private sector:

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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.