The average weekly wage in Australia is now $1,196.50, after surging by 6.1 per cent in the year to May.
The quarterly seasonally-adjusted pace of average weekly ordinary time earnings (AWOTE) rose 1.2 per cent in the three months to May, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data released on Thursday showed.
Such strength is a surprise given the negative impact the economic downturn has had on the labour market, and puts 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 a more modest pace of growth of 0.8 per cent in the three months to June with the annual rate a subdued 3.8 per cent.
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