We need a bloody pay increase Dicky
Another pay increase in the real world ( Australia anyway ) but not Cathay
Average weekly wage rises to $1242
From: AAP May 20, 2010 12:29pm
THE average weekly wage in Australia is now $1242.20, after rising by 5.8 per cent in the year to February.
The quarterly seasonally-adjusted pace of average weekly ordinary time earnings (AWOTE) rose 1.1 per cent in the three months to February, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data said.
This was lower than the 2.2 per cent quarterly growth recorded in the three months to November, but still left the annual rate well above the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) perceived "line in the sand" at 4.5 per cent.
Still, the composition of the AWOTE series tends to make it volatile, which is why the RBA prefers to use the wage price index - released on Wednesday - as one of its main guides to wages growth.
That index showed growth of 0.9 per cent in the March quarter with the annual rate rising to 3 per cent.