Canberra's local economy is recovering well from "a battering" in recent years, according to one of the big banks, but the latest official wage figures show the city's public sector workers are not feeling it in their hip pockets.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The ACT has continued to record the nation's lowest year-on-year public sector wage growth, according to the latest official figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
But the ANZ Bank's "Statometer" report, also published on Wednesday, shows the territory's economy on its way back from years of below-average growth and promising signs in the job market.
The bank's report, which rated all the states and territories, showed the ACT still as one of the few economies accelerating in the March quarter, despite still lagging behind its long-term average growth rate.
"The Australian Capital Territory continues to improve after a battering over the past few years," the ANZ analysts wrote.
"The ACT Index is nearing its trend-line after several years of economic growth below its long-run average rate.
"While the territory is not out of the woods, the outlook is better than it has been for a while. Importantly job vacancies have improved markedly."
Chief Minister Andrew Barr welcomed the ANZ report on Wednesday, saying it confirmed a trend already identified by other private sector analysts CommSec and Deloitte Access Economics.
But the ACT has continued to record the nation's lowest year-on-year public sector wage growth, according to the latest official figures.
The data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows wage growth in Canberra's public sector, dominated by the Australian public service, has been Australia's lowest for the past seven quarters.
Public sector wages in the ACT are now growing more than 25 per cent more slowly than the national average, for the past 12 months.
"Through the year, all sectors rose 2.1 per cent [seasonally adjusted]," the bureau's latest wage bulletin reads.
"The private sector through the year rise to the March quarter 2016 of 1.9 per cent was lower than the public sector rise of 2.5 per cent."
But public sector workers in the capital, where much of the Australian public service has had its wages effectively frozen since 2013 by the industrial strife over Abbott-era wage bargaining policy, have fared substantially worse.
"In the public sector, Queensland and Tasmania recorded the highest quarterly rise of 1 per cent [in unadjusted terms], with South Australia and the Northern Territory recording the lowest quarterly rise of 0.2 per cent," the bureau said in its bulletin.
"Western Australia recorded the highest through the year public sector rise of all states and territories, 3.3 per cent.
"For the seventh consecutive quarter, the lowest through the year rise for the public sector was recorded by the Australian Capital Territory (1.7 per cent) [unadjusted]."
The ACT also had the lowest annual growth in wages across the country, at an unadjusted 1.8 per cent compared with the previous March. The national average was 2.1 per cent.
Across Australia, wage growth has hit a new 18-year low, as high-paying jobs in mining infrastructure give way to less lucrative and more casual work in areas such as hospitality, real estate and house-building.
The bureau said on Wednesday that the seasonally adjusted wage price index rose a mere 0.4 per cent in the March quarter this year, for a year-on-year rate of 2.1 per cent.
The drop in wages is likely to weigh on thinking at the Reserve Bank of Australia, which this month cut the cash rate for the first time in a year in response to weaker-than-expected first-quarter inflation.
