The wages data will be vital for an assessment of both inflation pressures (or lack thereof), household income growth and the extent to which consumer spending can pick up from its current sluggishness. Wages growth has been tracking at record lows driven by global competitive pressures and a slack local labour market which is due to ongoing economic underperformance.
The weakness in wages growth has been a factor undermining household consumption spending and this is likely to remain a key issue for policy makers until wages growth picks up. The market consensus is for a very marginal increase in annual wages growth – from 1.9 per cent to 2.0 per cent.
