Australian wage growth likely to have accelerated slightly in Q1 2019

The Australian wage data for the first quarter 2019 is set to release tomorrow. According to an ANZ research report, wages are likely to have risen 0.6 percent quarter-on-quarter, following a 0.5 percent rise recorded in the prior quarter. This would maintain the year-on-year rate at 2.3 percent.

Wage growth is expected to pick-up gradually to 2.4 percent by the fourth quarter of this year. This is dependent on the expectation that the jobless rate will track sideways at around 5 percent, said ANZ.  Any rise in the jobless rate might stifle the gradual progress that wage growth has made in the past couple of years.

“However, for wage growth to continue to improve (and for it to get anywhere near the long-run average over the longer-term) we see a sustained, material decline in the underemployment rate as the key requirement”, added ANZ.

At 14:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of Australian Dollar was slightly bullish at 63.9833 while the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at 6.21782 more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex