Originally published in The Guardian on February 24, 2022

The latest wages data from the Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2021 real wages plummeted, with inflation raising by 3.5%, while wages increased just 2.3%.

Our Policy Director Greg Jericho writes in Guardian Australia that claims of a “wages breakout” remain purely a scare campaign from employer groups determined to keep wages low. He finds that once again real wages are failing to keep pace with productivity and that as a result no pressure on inflation is coming from wage claims, but instead workers are missing out. With levels of unemployment now associated with much lower wage growth than in the past, it is clear the power imbalance in wage negotiations has shifted drastically away from workers.