The AiG says the FWC should take into account the Budget's substantial cost-of-living relief for the low-paid in granting an increase no higher than 3.8% in this year's minimum wage case, while the Albanese Government says there are "no signs" of a wage-price spiral and reiterates its view that the real wages of low-paid workers should not "go backwards".
NSW Opposition Leader Chris Minns has hedged over whether his pledge to scrap the State's public sector wage cap will lead to higher pay increases than those awarded under the Perrottet Government.
Multi-year enterprise agreements, flaws in the "standard" Wage Price Index measure and public sector pay caps partially explain recent low wages growth, which would otherwise have been up to one percentage point higher last year, according to new university analysis.
Agreements filed with the FWC for approval in the first half of February delivered an average pay rise of 3.1% a year, according to "real-time" data released this morning.
Federal Treasurer Jim Chalmers has today argued for "responsible and sustainable" wage increases to ease cost of living pressures, as he emerged from an address to the ACTU's national executive in Melbourne.
As inflation continues to rise at about 7%, annual wage increases have dropped to just 2.2% in the latest fortnightly batch of "real-time" enterprise deals analysed by the FWC, due to health and welfare agreements paying an average of 2.1% a year.
Enterprise agreements filed with the FWC in the fortnight to October 21 paid average annualised wage increases of 3.5%, substantially outpacing the 2.8% rises in DEWR's data for June quarter agreements but well below the 7.3% rate of consumer price inflation.
Agreements lodged with the FWC in the fortnight to September 9 delivered annual rises of just 2.4% – the lowest in the short history of the Commission's "real-time" bargained wage data – after education deals effectively paying 1.7% a year to more than 10,000 workers dragged down the average increase.
The FWC's new leading indicator of bargained wage rises - officially launched today - shows that deals lodged in the first half of last month paid an average increase of 3%, up on those in the most recent DEWR data.
The RBA is expecting the near-8% year-end headline inflation spike to only ease to 6.25% in the middle of next year, while it is turning its guns on the ABS wage price index, which it perceives as too narrow.
