Wages in Australia increased by 4.2% in the December quarter when compared to the corresponding quarter a year ago, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

December’s annual wage growth compared to the September quarter (4.1% yearly growth) and is the highest recorded annual growth since the March quarter 2009 (also 4.2%).

The Wage Price Index (WPI) showed that wage growth in the private sector eased slightly to 4.2% for the year to December quarter 2023 (from 4.3% in September quarter 2023), the public sector had the highest wage growth since March quarter 2010 at 4.3%.

The Index rose 0.9% over the quarter in the December quarter.

Quarterly private sector wage growth on in the December quarter of 2023 is comparable to December 2022 (also 0.9%), while the public sector had the highest quarterly rise in 15 years (1.3%).  

Michelle Marquardt, ABS head of prices statistics, said, “For both the public and private sector, wages growth was driven by organisation-wide annual wage and salary reviews. Wage growth for December quarter 2023 saw a higher contribution from jobs covered by enterprise agreements than is typically recorded for a December quarter.”

“Higher growth in the public sector was primarily due to newly implemented enterprise agreements for essential workers in the healthcare and social assistance and Education and training industries following changes to state-based wages policies.”

In original terms, quarterly wage growth across the industries was highest in the education and training industry (1.7%), and the lowest in the accommodation and food services industry (0.3%).

Annual wage growth was highest in the healthcare and social assistance industry (5.5%), the highest growth since the start of the series in September quarter 1998. At 3.2%, the finance and insurance services industry had the lowest annual growth in wages.