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Last week. the AFR warned that “pay rises in private sector agreements recorded their biggest jump in 15 years at the end of last year, with the average wage increase accelerating to 3.5%, just as the Reserve Bank warns that “briskly” rising labour costs pose an inflation risk that might prompt it to lift interest rates further”.
1075 new enterprise agreements were approved in the December quarter covering more than 228,000 employees.
Capital Economics economist Marcel Thieliant told The AFR that the new agreement data “should be of some concern to the RBA”, despite overall private sector deals still averaging increases of just 2.8%, up from 2.7%.
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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.
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