The wage price index increased by a slightly improved +0.6 per cent in the June 2019 quarter.
That still wasn't enough to push up the result for FY 2019 to beyond +2.3 per cent, though.
Private sector wages growth was just +2.26 per cent, up only modestly from +2.07 per cent a year earlier.
And public sector wages growth was +2.58 per cent, up from +2.41 per cent a year earlier.
Victoria has seen experienced a decline in its labour force underutilisation, and this was reflected in the strongest wages growth across the states at +2.86 per cent.
Elsewhere, there was not much to write home about, including in New South Wales (+2.34 per cent) and Queensland (+2.26 per cent).
Western Australia saw wages growth of just +1.55 per cent.
Of course, inflation is also very low, so in real terms wages did at least increase by +0.7 per cent over the financial year, the best we have seen for more than half a decade.
Combined with a salvo of interest rate cuts this will take the sting out of the little mortgage stress that there is.
Wages growth including bonuses has become a somewhat more fashionable measure in recent times, including with the Reserve Bank of Australia, but here too the annual result showed few signs of spark.
The strongest sector was healthcare and social assistance at +3.3 per cent, with wholesale trade bringing up the rear at +1.7 per cent.
The wrap
Wages growth in financial year 2019 was marginally better than in the prior year, and quite a bit better in real terms.
But if debt to income ratios are to come down, then much stronger wages growth that this would be favourable.
In the UK, for example, where monetary policy has pushed the unemployment rate down to 40-year lows of well under 4 per cent, the growth in average hourly earnings has stormed to +3.7 per cent (and +3.9 per cent including bonuses).
Australia is a world away from such strong growth, and there's much more to be done in terms of reducing spare capacity.
Financial markets are pricing for two more rate cuts between now and February next year, with further downside risk all the way out to H2 2020.
If tomorrow's labour force figures are soft the odds of a near term interest rate cut may increase sharply.
