21233 – Real Wage Growth

Real Wage Growth (21233) measures whether pay is keeping pace with prices: growth over the year in the Wage Price Index less growth over the year in the Consumer Price Index. Positive readings mean wages are rising faster than prices; negative readings mean the purchasing power of wages is falling. It belongs to the Employment & GDP family (21230) and is read in its own right.

Real wages bear on housing through borrowing capacity and the share of income that rent and repayments absorb. The node reads hourly rates of pay for a fixed set of jobs, so it is not affected by changes in the mix of jobs or hours.

Primary metric: Node Z-Score (Z₂₁₂₃₃)

Metric typology: single-series Z-score of a growth gap, in percentage points.

Tier-1 sovereign statistical releases. No commercial data provider dependency exists within this node.

The chart shows the node’s reading in every quarter, measured against the 2011–2025 baseline.

At −0.5704σ (Q2 2026), wages are falling behind prices: the Wage Price Index rose 3.19% over the year and the Consumer Price Index 3.94%, a gap of −0.75 points. Position. 13.5, ranked against 112 quarters since September 1998.

Real wages have fallen over the year in each of the last three quarters, after rising by 1.34 points in the year to June 2025. The lowest reading on record is −3.2634σ in December 2022, when price growth exceeded wage growth by about 4.5 points; the highest is +1.8192σ in June 2012.

The other nodes of the Employment & GDP family. Only Labour Market Tightness (21231) and Growth per Person (21235) compose into Employment & GDP (21230); the others are read in their own right.