The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released its Wage Price Index for the December quarter of 2015, which revealed a continuation of soft wages growth across the economy, with annual wages growth also tracking at the lowest rate in the series’ 18 year history (see below charts).
According to the ABS, wages grew by 0.49% (both s.a. and trend) in the December quarter. Private sector wages grew by 0.49% (both s.a. and trend) over the quarter, whereas public sector wages grew by 0.49% (s.a.) and 0.57% (trend).
Over the year, total wages grew by just 2.16% (both s.a. and trend), with the private sector experiencing 2.00% (both s.a. and trend) growth and the public sector 2.56% (both s.a. and trend) growth.
You can see from the next chart, which plots non-seasonally adjusted wages growth on an annual basis (in order to reduce volatility), that wages growth has softened everywhere, and is especially weak in Western Australia (1.8%) and Queensland (1.9%):
In a similar vein, wages growth has weakened across most industries, with the exception of the financial parasites (+2.8%), with yesterday’s hero, mining (1.5 YoY%), suffering the biggest downturn along with construction (1.6% YoY):
Once again, there’s little joy in this release for workers, with wages growth continuing on the slow path.
