Aussie real wages smashed lower

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released the wage price index for the September quarter of 2025, which reported a quarterly increase of 0.8% and an annual increase of 3.4%:

As illustrated below by Justin Fabo from Antipodean Macro, the outcome aligned with the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) and market expectations, posing no significant policy implications.

The following chart shows that public sector wages (3.8%) are growing significantly faster than the private sector (3.2%), indicative of the strong growth in public spending and the soft private sector demand.

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About the author

Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.