Aussie real wages smashed lower
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The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released the wage price index for the September quarter of 2025, which reported a quarterly increase of 0.8% and an annual increase of 3.4%:

As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, the outcome aligned with the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) and market expectations, posing no significant policy implications.

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The following chart shows that public sector wages (3.8%) are growing significantly faster than the private sector (3.2%), indicative of the strong growth in public spending and the soft private sector demand.

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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.