The Morrison Government is expected to soon make long-delayed appointments to the FWC's expert panel, ahead of the annual wage review picking up steam.
Growth in private sector rates of pay excluding bonuses remained stagnant at the end of last year, but continued to outpace inflation, according to ABS data released today.
Bargained wage rises in the private sector dropped to 2.7% a year in the September quarter, according to newly-released Attorney-General's Department data that also shows some large retail employers are starting to tie increases to the FWC's annual review.
An FWC-commissioned study probing the characteristics of low-paid award-reliant workers and their propensity to move to a better paying job has suggested that policymakers need to focus on helping older, less-educated employees to obtain higher incomes.
In a case highlighting the dangers of failing to engage with underpayments cases, an employer who did not respond to a claim it short-changed a teenage worker by $8000 must now pay him an additional $240,000 in penalties.
Workers' wages will continue to grow at about 2.2%, similar to the current WPI, partly because the forthcoming 0.5 percentage point rise in compulsory super payments will be mostly funded by forgone pay rises, according to the RBA.
New rules for recording the working hours of junior lawyers and paralegals are set to take effect from March, despite protests from major law firms, while up to a million clerical employees are set to be subject to similar provisions.
The arrangement under which a former driver worked about 30 hours over a 10-month period could not possibly be considered casual employment, Deliveroo has argued in its Federal Circuit Court defence against a sham contracting case.
