wages

Advertised wages growth is at/near pre-COVID levels in the US & EA, while still-high growth in AUS & NZ should improve this year.

Wages growth has slowed a lot from its COVID peak, but the improvement looks to have broadly stalled recently.

The AWOTE and AWE measures of wages grew strongly at the end of last year.

US employment growth was strong, unemployment held steady and wages growth accelerated in January

Spending was held down by direct government cost-of-living subsidies in Q3, while unit labour costs continue to grow strongly.

Wages growth has slowed, but was the fastest in trend terms since 2000.

Strong unit labour costs risk delaying the return of inflation to the 2-3% target band

Another measure of wages shows labour costs are growing strongly.

Workers securing pay rises are achieving large increases.

The resilience of wages growth likely reinforces the Fed's concern that it may take longer for core inflation to return to the 2% target.

Strong unit labour costs account for the bulk of high domestic inflation.

Recent data on both job vacancies and worker mobility show that Australia's labour market is continuing to tighten, pointing to ongoing reductions in the...

February’s reporting season was unusual. At a time of year when focus is typically on earnings, these were largely overshadowed by macro-economic events. War and...

Wages growth is responding to a tighter labour market, with sub-4% unemployment likely to pressure the RBA as it contemplates raising rates later this year. At the...

The lowest unemployment rate in years raises the risk that the RBA not only stops buying bonds next month (which is now widely expected by market participants) but...

An analysis of the industry split of wages shows why the RBA is sceptical that wages can accelerate fast enough to justify market expectations of rate hikes next year....

In the AFR today I write about what an incredible week it was for markets. The fourth-largest monthly decline in unemployment on record and yet the Aussie dollar fell...

The RBA has published a fascinating new research paper on "underemployment", which has increased noticeably since the GFC. The underemployment rate is defined as the...

The most important question for 2018 in an Australian context will be whether the economy is strong enough for the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) to start removing...