Workers in health care and social assistance, utility services, education and retail have received the highest wage increases in Australia over the last 12 months to the June quarter.
Overall, wages have grown by 4.1 per cent over the year to the June quarter, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said in its quarterly Wage Price Index report on Tuesday.
Two-thirds of all jobs — or 67 per cent — have recorded an annualised wage growth of more than 3 per cent over the previous 12 months.
At 5 per cent, the highest growth has been recorded in the healthcare and social assistance sector, exceeding the average for all industries by almost 1 per cent.
On the other hand, workers in the arts, information media and telecommunications and real estate are among those who’ve experienced the weakest wage growth.
Meanwhile, inflation only rose 3.8 per cent annually, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data released by the ABS on 31 July.
Following the release of December quarter data earlier this year, the ABS announced that wage growth in Australia had outpaced inflation for the first time in three years.
The newly released data show that wage rises are continuing to outstrip inflation.
However, this dynamic only applies to annual changes; in the June quarter itself, inflation outstripped wage growth — at 0.8 per cent and 1 per cent, respectively.
‘If prices grow faster than wages, working people go backwards’
Aruna Sathanapally, CEO and economic prosperity and democracy program director at the Grattan Institute, told SBS News that wage growth surpassing inflation was a good thing.
“Real wage growth, that is, wages growing faster than the general level of prices, is generally a good thing. If prices grow faster than wages, working people go backwards.”
Wage rises were not evenly spread across all sectors of the economy — although the differences also depended on the metric used.
Wages have only marginally surpassed inflation. So is this good news for Australians?
Sathanapally says: “This is a broad average that won’t describe a particular person’s situation.
“I would say, broadly now we are seeing wage growth keep pace with price growth, with the hope that inflation drops in the coming year and that wage growth is sustained through higher productivity.”
Private vs public sector wage growth
Private sector wages increased by 0.7 per cent over the June quarter, or 4.1 per cent for the year to the quarter.
“The June quarter 2024 private sector rise was the lowest rise for a June quarter since 2021 and the equal lowest rise for any quarter since December quarter 2021,” said Michelle Marquardt, ABS’ head of prices statistics.
On the other hand, the public sector performed slightly better in the June quarter — registering a growth of 0.9 per cent — but on an annual basis experienced a 3.9 per cent growth.
Marquardt attributes this to the recent pay rises distributed across the Australian Public Service.
“The stronger June quarterly rise for the public sector was largely due to the newly synchronised timing pattern of Commonwealth public sector agreement increases.
“All Australian Public Service employees received pay increases effective 14 March 2024. This led to a larger increase in the contribution Commonwealth jobs made to public sector wage growth.
“Pay rises for these jobs had previously been paid at different times across quarters depending on the timing of individual agency agreements.”
