Australia union urges focus on wage growth and full employment

The ACTU has called on the government to prioritise full employment and wage growth, highlighting that it should not sacrifice job growth to lower inflation.

“Our top economic goal as a nation should be to give everyone the chance to get a secure and fairly paid job. The benefits everyone. That’s what we mean by full and secure employment,” said Sally McManus, Secretary of the ACTU.

The ACTU released a paper, which called for restructuring of the economy to bring benefits to Australians rather than firms and included recommendations for the Reserve Bank of Australia to balance targeting inflation with growing the job market.  

“We can choose to build an economy which gives a greater share of the national wealth to the people who create it and delivers rising living standards for all Australians,” it read.

Stagnating wages have long been a problem, and it is only with inflation trending higher that the issue has been thrust into the spotlight, said McManus. 

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“Working people have suffered through nearly a decade of insecure work and stagnant wages, only now to be met with historically high inflation delivering massive real pay cuts,” she added.