Market misreads wages data

David Llewellyn-Smith

Wednesday 13 May 2026

The ABS is with March QTR wages, and it’s been going well.

The seasonally adjusted Wage Price Index (WPI) rose 0.8% this quarter.
Over the twelve months to the March quarter, the WPI rose 3.3%.
The private sector rose 0.8% and the public sector rose 0.5%, seasonally adjusted over the quarter.
In original terms, the largest industry contributor to quarterly wages growth was Health care and social assistance (+0.7%).

The headline was as expected.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.