An easing of Australia’s labour shortage has kept downward pressure on wages and prevented a blow-out from the minimum wage increase.
The CommBank Wage and Labour Insights report, released today, said wage growth for individual employees had cooled.
This seemed to be linked to employers slowly finding it easier to get the workers they needed.
This has offset the impact of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) Annual Wage Review, which lifted minimum wages by 4.75 percent, and could have set off another wage-price inflation spiral.
The CommBank report said annual wage growth increased to 3.3 percent in August 2026, up from 3.2 percent in July.
Quarterly wage growth remained unchanged at 0.8 per cent over the three months to August.
The bank estimated that there were 20,000 jobs new jobs in August, keeping employment growth close to what is termed the “break-even rate” (rising jobs matches rising demand).
CommBank Economist Harry Ottley said the pickup in wage momentum was smaller than initially expected.
“We expected this pickup in momentum in our data in August but do not see the stronger wage growth as evidence of a strengthening labour market,” he said.
“Our methodology means it can take several months to fully reflect shifts in momentum. Even so, we are now more confident that the impulse from the FWC Annual Wage Review on broader wage growth has been smaller than we previously expected.”
Mr Ottley said the data did not signal a material pick-up in employment momentum in recent months.
“We continue to expect employment growth to soften from here, while acknowledging that labour demand has been more resilient than expected so far,” he said.
