Westpac preview the wages data due mid-week from Australia, Wednesday, 17 August 2022 at 0130 GMT:
- We feel if there was ever a time for wages to regain some of relationship with broader labour market indicators, late 2022 and into 2023 must be it.
- The anecdotes suggest wages pressures have strengthened as employers bid up wages in an effort to attract workers in a very tight labour market. But the WPI is a very pure quality-adjusted measure of hourly wage rates that can be slow to move compared to broader measures of labour costs. As such, we have pencilled in a 0.9% rise in June but suggest the risks are to the downside. Should the WPI print a larger number, this would be a surprise suggesting we are indeed in a very strong wage inflationary period.
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An upside surprise would be a positive input for the Australian dollar, it'd suggest no slowing in rate hikes to come from the RBA over the next few months.
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This snapshot from the ForexLive economic data calendar, access it here.
- The times in the left-most column are GMT.
- The numbers in the right-most column are the 'prior' (previous month/quarter as the case may be) result. The number in the column next to that, where is a number, is the consensus median expected.
