Australian wage growth remained near record low levels in the December quarter of 2020, according to new data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Overall wages grew by only 1.42% in the 2020 calendar year, marginally above the September quarter’s all-time low of 1.36% recorded in the year to September.
The private sector recorded wage growth of only 1.36% in calendar year 2020, whereas the public service recorded 1.61% wage growth over the year (see next chart).
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Wage growth is universally weak across Australia’s jurisdictions, Victoria (1.3%) experiencing the weakest growth and QLD and NT (both 1.6%) the strongest:
Wage growth is also universally weak across industries, but is strongest in health care and financial services (both 1.6%) and weakest across real estate services (0.7%):
Wage growth will likely rebound slowly as the economy recovers, but will remain soft on a historical basis.
However, rebooting mass immigration and going ahead with the scheduled lift in the Superannuation Guarantee will weigh on the wage recovery.
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.
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