Pay rises for workers on enterprise bargaining agreements recorded their biggest jump in 11 years, and wage growth is tipped to exceed official forecasts, maintaining pressure on the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates.
Workers covered by the 841 enterprise bargaining agreements signed in the March quarter received an average annualised pay rise of 3.7 per cent, data released by the Department of Workplace Relations and Employment shows. The agreements had an average duration of 2.3 years.
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David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
