Leith Van Onselen, Macrobusiness – the ‘Unconventional Economist’, joins Luke Grant to talk about the RBA’s claim that the rise in older people in the workforce is behind the anaemic growth in Australian wages.

RBA governor Philip Lowe said in a speech last week that the surge in participation was a “positive development,” but it also meant it had become “quite difficult to generate a tight labour market with the flow-on consequence that wage increases remain subdued.”

For example, the higher number of people in the workforce has meant that even though the economy has created about 600,000 new jobs in the past two years, the unemployment rate has more recently been edging up, in part because of all the extra available workers.

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(Photo by: stylephotographs)