If you think it has been a long time since you got your last pay rise, you're right. The Bureau of Statistics says over the past four years the average wait has climbed from 12 months to 14 months – the longest on record.

And the increases themselves are getting smaller. The bureau says the average wage increase has shrunk from 3.6 per cent to 2.3 per cent.

The average wage increase has shrunk from 3.6 per cent to 2.3 per cent.

Combined, the longer wait and the smaller average increase pushed wage growth down to 1.9 per cent in the year to September, the first time annual wage growth has been below 2 per cent since the bureau began compiling the index in the late 1990s.

The only good news for someone hoping for higher pay is that almost everyone is in the same boat. For the first time since the index began, no occupation group has recorded wage growth of more than 2.5 per cent.