Australian wages up 5pc

Relevant offers

World

Greece fails to pull out of recession Spoof Qantas Twitter account shut down US financial crisis chair quits mortgage firm Apple shares break above US$500 Moody's warns France, UK, others over ratings Murdoch battle looms over Sun showdown NZ called a haven for illegal Indian cash Riots as Greece approves austerity Greece strikes bailout deal Gunns keen for NZ investment to fire up mill

The average weekly wage in Australia is now $1,200.60, ($NZ1517) after rising by 5.2 percent in the year to August.

The quarterly seasonally-adjusted pace of average weekly ordinary time earnings (AWOTE) rose 0.9 percent in the three months to August, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data released on Thursday showed.

This was a slight moderation on the 1.3 percent quarterly growth recorded in the three months to May but still left the annual rate well above the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) perceived "line in the sand" at 4.5 percent.

Still, the composition of the AWOTE series tends to make it volatile, which is why the RBA prefers to use the wage price index - released on Wednesday - as one of its main guides to wages growth.

That index showed a more modest pace of growth of 0.7 percent in the three months to September with the annual rate a subdued 3.6 percent, its slowest pace in nearly five years.

- AAP