A UK national living wage review has found that while the NLW's introduction has not caused job losses, the expected productivity gains have failed to materialise.
In the wake of the RBA governor's warning about the risks of a wage-price spiral, new A-G's department data shows that bargained pay rises are flatlining at 2.7% a year in the private sector, rising at little more than half the 5.1% rate of headline consumer price inflation.
Former ACTU secretary and RBA director Bill Kelty has thrown his weight behind appointing someone with a union background to the Reserve Bank board, saying in the wake of claims about its limited perspectives that the central bank has not understood how wages operate "for a long time".
The UK Low Pay Commission has increased its wage floor by 6.6% to £9.50 ($16.80) as part of its plan to raise the minimum to two-thirds of median earnings by 2024.
Unions have today told the FWC's minimum wage panel that their biggest concern is that low-paid workers will go "further backwards" in the coming year due to continuing inflation and price increases.
Consumer prices are now rising at more than double the pace of private sector rates of pay excluding bonuses, which increased by 2.4% annually in the March quarter, unchanged from the December quarter, according to the ABS.
As wage stagnation and cost-of-living issues continue to feature in the federal election campaign, a new report shows Australia has experienced the greatest deceleration in real pay growth in the OECD since 2013, despite its relatively strong employment growth and low unemployment, suggesting that policy and institutional factors are the main culprit, rather than market forces.
The RBA has today raised interest rates for the first time in more than a decade, due to a rapid increase in inflation and "evidence that wages growth is picking up".
The ACTU's first television advertisement of the election campaign seeks to sheet home the blame for wage stagnation to Prime Minister Scott Morrison's "inaction".
