Australian wages rose by 0.9% in the December quarter of 2023, and by 4.2% in the year. This is the highest annual increase since March 2009.
South Australian wages rose by 0.8% in the December quarter and by 4% in the year.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics attributed almost half of the quarterly wage growth to a large number of both public and private sector enterprise agreements being finalised. This was well above normal figures for the December quarter.
Public sector wage growth outpaced the private sector by 0.4% in the quarter. Education and training saw the highest quarterly gain of 1.7%, followed by health care and social assistance at 1.3%.
With inflation figures declining to 4.1% annually, real wages are now in positive territory in the year, the first time this has been the case since March 2021.
More jobs are receiving larger wage increases – 64% of the jobs that recorded a wage change in the last year rose above 3%. This was true of 45% of jobs in December 2022.
