In a shift in emphasis after calling for limits on pay rises to avoid a wage-price spiral, RBA Governor Philip Lowe today called for businesses to avoid using skyrocketing inflation "as cover" for increasing their profit margins.
The FWC has promised today to provide "real-time" data on bargained pay rises, with plans to issue fortnightly reports on wage movements in enterprise agreement approval applications, with the first "proposed report" showing a 3.2% average annualised rise in the first two weeks of July, well ahead of the last official departmental number for the March quarter of 2.7%.
The nexus between low unemployment and rising wages is broken, with the "hydraulic pressure" of a tight labour market undermined by systemic "leaks" and "loopholes", according to workplace relations minister Tony Burke.
Private sector rates of pay increased by 2.7% annually in the June quarter, lifting off historic lows but failing to make much of a dent on surging inflation.
The RBA is expecting the near-8% year-end headline inflation spike to only ease to 6.25% in the middle of next year, while it is turning its guns on the ABS wage price index, which it perceives as too narrow.
Former FWC Deputy President Peter Sams has foreshadowed the Federal Labor Government might introduce sector-wide bargaining changes by the end of the year in a bid to boost wage growth, but an employment law academic says there are three clear roadblocks to such a move.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers says that inflation is likely to peak at 7.75% in the December quarter then decline over the next two years, while real wage rises will return next financial year, but the ACTU says the forecast only "deepens" the pay crisis, with the resumption of growth in mid-2024 meaning workers will have suffered four years of going backwards.
NSW unions have called on the Perrottet Coalition Government to loosen the State's public sector pay cap after a Queensland offer to nurses that will deliver 11% in pay rises over three years plus "cost of living top-up payments" of up to 3% a year.
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.