Australian workers' wages remain resolutely stuck in the slow lane, despite end of year wage reviews and July's national minimum pay decision kicking in.

Key points: Wage price index stuck at 2pc despite a series of factors including annual bonuses and the minimum wage rise

Wage price index stuck at 2pc despite a series of factors including annual bonuses and the minimum wage rise The surprisingly weak result will disappoint the RBA and saw the dollar tumble below 76c US

The surprisingly weak result will disappoint the RBA and saw the dollar tumble below 76c US WA's +1.3pc over the year the weakest wage growth; Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania +2.2pc the strongest

Wages rose by 0.5 per cent in the September quarter, or 2 per cent over the year in seasonally adjusted terms.

The market had expected a much more robust, although historically weak, 0.7 per cent growth over the quarter and 2.2 per cent over the year, driven by the minimum pay rise.

The surprisingly poor result saw the Australian dollar plunge below 76 cents against the US dollar.

Quarterly wages growth has now been stuck in the very narrow, and low, band of 0.4 per cent to 0.6 per cent for the last 13 quarters.

Australian Bureau of Statistics chief economist Bruce Hockman described the September quarter increase as marginal.

"The higher wage growth in the September quarter was driven by enterprise agreement increases, end of financial year wage reviews and the Fair Work Commission's annual minimum wage review," Mr Hockman said.

Callam Pickering, the Asia-Pacific economist for job site Indeed, said low wage growth remains the dominant, worrying trend for the Australian economy.

"It's the key for monetary policy, the key for inflation, and the key for improved retail spending," he wrote in a note.

"Stronger business conditions and lower unemployment should, in time, lead to higher wage growth.

"But there remains a high degree of slack in the labour market and that keep wage growth relatively low for the foreseeable future."

How did you fare?

Once again, public sector wages (+2.4 per cent) outstripped the private sector (+1.9 per cent) over the year.

Mining wages remain in the doldrum up just 0.2 per cent for the quarter and 1.2 per cent over year.

Health workers enjoyed the most robust wage growth over the year, but even then it was still well below 3 per cent.

Western Australia continued to be the laggard, with wages up just 1.3 per cent over the year, driven by continued weakness in the mining sector.

Workers in Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania fared better, with pay rises of 2.2 per cent.

JP Morgan economist Tom Kennedy said the most striking feature of wage data in recent years has been the breadth of weakness, with growth tracking at or just above historic lows in most industries.

RBA rate rise even further away

The prospect of low wages growth, and therefore low inflation, for a longer period weighs on the prospect of Australian interest rate rises, which has knocked the stuffing out of the Australian dollar.

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The local currency has fallen more than half a per cent to 75.85 US cents, the first time it has traded below 76 US cents since July.

The Reserve Bank no doubt would be disappointed with the result given it had expected the minimum wages decision would directly contribute 0.2 per cent to this quarter's wage price index (WPI), which in turn had driven the market's more optimistic expectations.

"The RBA has previously noted that up to 40 per cent of the labour force would benefit from changes to the minimum wage rate, so we suspect that today's number would come as an unwelcome surprise to bank officials," Mr Kennedy noted.

"This is particularly so in regards to household balance sheets, as it makes the RBA's desired stabilization in the household debt-to-income ratio even hard to achieve."

No sign of an upturn

Deutsche Bank's Adam Boyton said taken from any angle, the result was weak.

"In the end there has either been a step down in 'underlying' wages growth; or the pass through of the recent minimum wage increases was even less than we had expected," Deutsche Bank's Adam Boyton said.

Mr Boyton said the weakness in wages growth is what links weak consumer sentiment and strong business conditions.

"Plotting labour costs from the NAB survey against consumer sentiment suggests in fact that there is a high degree of alignment between what businesses are telling us about wages and what consumers are saying about their own circumstances," he added.

Capital Economics Paul Dales' take was blunt, despite wage growth edging marginally above its historic low.

"There is still no meaningful wage inflation in Australia," he said.

Mr Dales doubted this result would go down in history as the point that wage growth finally turned upwards after the GFC.

"This rise was entirely due to the decision by the Fair Work Commission to raise the minimum wage by 3.3 per cent this July, which was the largest rise since 2011, rather than a sign that the tighter labour market is forcing firms to raise wages at a faster rate."