NAB’s economics team has talked-up yesterday’s soft wage growth data, claiming private sector wages are in fact booming. In turn, this justifies further aggressive interest rate hikes from the RBA:
NAB director of economics and markets Tapas Strickland had a clear message: “Ignore the headline [Wage Price Index] excluding bonuses.” Instead, he said to look at bonuses and the average quarterly growth.
Private sector wages including bonuses grew 3.3 per cent through the year, reflecting the push by many businesses to reward and attract staff with one-off payments instead of permanent pay rises.
