Boosting real wages to ensure worker pay keeps up with inflation will feature in the upcoming jobs and skills summit next month.
Workers experienced a real pay cut last quarter, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureaus of Statistics, with wages increasing less than half the rate of inflation.
Productivity was flagged as a key driver of real wage growth in the medium term in the summit issues paper released by the Labor government.
The paper also pointed to structural issues holding back wage growth, including the country's flagging bargaining system.
The number of employees covered by enterprise agreements has fallen to 35.1 per cent in 2021 from its peak of 43.4 per cent in 2010.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus says wage growth should be the top priority of the jobs summit.
"Our bargaining system is the engine of wage growth - the engine has conked out, our country needs urgent reform to our wages system to get wage growth back on track," she said.
Speaking at the National Press Club, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry head Andrew McKellar said the employer group was joining forces with other major business groups to submit a proposal designed to "restore confidence" in the bargaining system.
Mr McKellar also welcomed the government's suggestion to raise the permanent skilled migration uptake to 200,000 to help ease labour shortages.
The ACTU is prepared to support the higher migration targets on the condition that domestic workers are first offered higher pay and training.
ACTU president Michele O'Neil also wants to see more investment in vocational training, and guardrails to prevent the exploitation of migrant workers.
"It is a disgrace that we have systemic exploitation and abuse of workers," she told ABC's RN.
Mr McKellar says the ACTU's recommendations to increase the income threshold before accessing the temporary migrant stream could "kill many areas of the immigration program overnight".
Lifting participating in the job market will also be on the agenda at the summit.
National Disability and Insurance Scheme Minister Bill Shorten wants to see full employment extended to people living with disabilities.
He plans to discuss how the NDIS can build more support for pathways to employment.
The jobs summit will bring together unions, employers, citizens and government to discuss Australia's key economic challenges.
"As we approach the job summit, the NDIS has to step up," Mr Shorten says
"Even though we're at a time of full employment, people with disability are not sufficiently sharing in the benefit of full employment. The dial effectively hasn't moved for three decades."
