Australian wages become a ward of the state

Advertisement

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:

Advertisement

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:
Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe
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.