The figures, published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, show wages grew by just 0.5 per cent in the June quarter, or 1.9 per cent over the year, placing mounting pressure on household budgets.

The result also means the Turnbull government is now barely keeping up with its budget forecast of a 2 per cent wage rise, a figure it is banking on to return to surplus by 2020-21. It has fallen well short the 2.5 per cent rise it forecast for the year to June in the 2016 budget.

The private sector's 0.4 per cent growth for the three months to March is the weakest result since the global financial crisis, with only healthcare and education workers recording a rise much above inflation.

Overall, wage growth for private employees slowed to just 1.8 per cent, below the cost of living of 1.9 per cent for the year to June, while the wages of public sector workers grew by 2.5 per cent.

The Bureau's chief economist Bruce Hockman said the low wage growth was partly a result of continuing underemployment.

"Underemployment is an indicator of spare capacity in the labour market and a key contributor to ongoing low wages growth," he said.

Treasurer Scott Morrison has repeatedly said Australians would "see better days ahead" on the back of record jobs growth, echoing the sentiments of Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe.

"With the strongest jobs growth since before the financial crisis of 240,000 jobs it is important that we continue to make the right choices to see these results flow into wages," he said.

Labor's employment spokesman Brendan O'Connor said Mr Morrison had scored the trifecta of flat wage growth, the proliferation of insecure work, and a falling share of GDP accruing to employees.

Mr Morrison said wages wouldn't improve by increasing taxes on business.

"Your wage is not going to go up by Bill Shorten taxing someone else's wage more," he said. "Labor's plan to increase the tax burden is driven by pursuing the politics of envy not the economics of opportunity."

Goldman Sachs economist Andrew Boak said he believed the peak disinflationary period for wages had passed on the back of the 3.3 per cent increase in the minimum wage, a 33-year high in corporate profits and the longest continued expansion in jobs growth since 2011.

But the best-performing states of NSW and Victoria continued to record disappointing wage growth, bucking the widely held theory that near-full employment would lift wages.

"The weakness in annual wage growth wis once again broad-based across the states and sectors" said Capital Economics chief economist Paul Dales.

"In other words, hardly anyone is escaping the low wage problem," he said.