PATCHY RECOVERY DEFINED BY EVEN WEAKER WAGES GROWTH

JIM CHALMERS MP.
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3 years ago
PATCHY RECOVERY DEFINED BY EVEN WEAKER WAGES GROWTH
JIM CHALMERS MP
A new report from Deloitte Access Economics highlights the recovery will be patchy and defined by even weaker wages growth, following record low wages growth under the Coalition.
 
With stagnant wages growth expected to slow even further, it beggars belief that the Morrison Government has a plan to cut the wages of hard-working Australians.
 
According to Deloitte’s Business Outlook, growth in average earnings is expected to plummet to one per cent, and is not expected to return to two per cent before 2024-25.
 
While there is a welcome recovery underway in some parts of the economy, Deloitte highlights the substantial challenges of high and persistent unemployment and underemployment, stagnant wages and a further decline in business investment.  
 
According to the Outlook:
  • The damage of 2020 “definitely hasn’t disappeared, and it will linger: the enormous protection provided by the federal government is being dismantled rapidly, the world economy is a mess, and the geopolitical backdrop for Australia looks more troubled than it has been for many years”; 
  •  “This is the biggest downturn in Australia in decades, and the human cost of that (including via unemployment and underemployment) will be slow to fully heal”; and
  • Wages growth will keep “bumping along the bottom for some time.”
The Morrison Government should not and cannot declare victory while more than two million Australians are either without a job or don’t have enough hours and wages are stagnant.
 
After racking up a trillion dollars of debt, the Morrison Government should have more to show for it in terms of jobs and opportunities. But instead they’ve wasted too much on rorts and advertising.
 
The Morrison Government’s plans to cut wages, cut super and wind back consumer protections in the banking system could weaken the recovery and will leave too many Australians behind.
 
Finance