Wage growth in Australia fell to its worst for the decade in last year, an official index showed on Wednesday. Wages grew only 2.9 per cent in 2009.

An index by the Bureau of Statistics indicated that wages received by the private sector employees in the last quarter was 2.5 per cent higher than what they received for the corresponding period in the previous financial year.

Public sector employees witnessed a better wage growth of 4.1 per cent.

Wages rose only 0.6 per cent in December quarter over September quarter on a on a quarter-on-quarter basis. The index considers compensation to employees excluding bonus.

Due to the slow growth in wages analysts believe that the Reserve Bank of Australia may just like to hold interest rates stable for sometime as pressure exerted by wage growth on inflation is under control at the moment. However, this may just be momentary as the long-term inflation outlook calls for a rate hike.

Meanwhile, some other data published by the official agency revealed that total value of the completed construction work in 2009 registered a decline of 3.9 per cent despite 2.6 per cent rise in the last quarter. Construction works are critical for the recovery of the economy.