Total hourly rates of pay, excluding bonuses, rose by a seasonally adjusted 0.8 per cent in the December quarter, official figures show.
The wage price index rose 3.4 per cent from a year earlier, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday.
The median market forecast was for a rise of 0.8 per cent in the December quarter.
In the September quarter, the index rose an unrevised 0.7 per cent.
The index measures movement in underlying wages by calculating the change in wage and salary cost across a range of occupations.
