The FWC is seeking submissions on the latest phase of its research on gender-based occupational segregation, which has been released ahead of this year's annual wage review.
The Workplace Gender Equality Agency has revealed a NDIS health service, the Energizer battery giant and an investment and logistics company have the largest median total remuneration gender pay gaps, while construction topped the list on an industry basis, under new laws requiring the agency to annually report the performance of companies with 100-plus employees.
The FWC has today launched the next stage of its gender pay equity research, in which it will examine a dozen awards covering highly-feminised sectors to uncover indicators of gender-based undervaluation of minimum rates, ahead of the 2023-24 annual wage review.
Award wage increases have responded to rather than contributed to higher price inflation, and although the tight labour market has brought higher pay growth, it is "not enough to be a threat to slowing price inflation", according to a leading labour market economist.
University research commissioned by the FWC has identified 29 "large, highly feminised" and probably undervalued occupations covered by 13 modern awards that it might spotlight in the current annual wage review, in response to the Secure Jobs' imperative to address unequal remuneration and gender undervaluation in minimum rates of pay.
The RBA says several new early indicators it has developed in-house are helping it to build a "fuller view" of wage movements ahead of the release of official figures.
The highly-orthodox IMF has told the RBA's annual research conference that it is "hard to find" recent wage-price spirals across advanced economies and that pay acceleration "should not be seen as a sign" that the corkscrew feared by the central bank "is taking hold", in a session in which new board member and former FWC president Iain Ross led discussion.
New DEWR data has undercut RBA warnings about the risks of a wage-price spiral, indicating that private sector bargained wage growth remains anchored below 4% a year.
The chair of the ACTU's price gouging inquiry, former ACCC chair Alan Fels, has told a public hearing this is a "missing piece" in Australia's inflation story and there is a lot of resistance to the message that it is being driven by "prices themselves", while the Australia Institute says corporate profits must fall.