Public-servant wage hikes beat gains for private sector

Growth in wages for workers has remained steady but figures remain above pre-COVID levels.

The wage price index for the June quarter remained at 0.8 per cent, causing the annual growth rate to slow to 3.2 per cent, figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday showed.

Salary growth in the public sector has outpaced wage rises in private industries for the sixth quarter in a row.

While the quarterly figures were unchanged, the annual data was down from the 3.4 per cent at the same time in 2025, the bureau's head of price statistics Rachael McCrick said.

"Although we're currently below the late 2023 peak of 4.3 per cent, annual wage growth remains above the 2.2 per cent that we were seeing in the December quarter 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic," she said.

"The decline in the share of jobs with larger wage rises has contributed to slower wage growth overall."

Public-sector wages increased by 3.4 per cent for the quarter, which was down slightly from a 3.7 per cent boost in June 2025.

In the private sector, there was a 3.1 per cent increase, but that was less than the 3.4 per cent gain the year before.

"Rises paid to state government public service jobs were the main driver of public-sector growth, supported by scheduled rises paid under the existing APS-wide enterprise agreement for Commonwealth employees," Ms McCrick said.

The number of jobs that a had change of wages of less than four per cent rose to 79 per cent for the quarter, an increase from 75 per cent.

It's the largest share of jobs that had a pay-packet rise of less than four per cent since June 2022.