By Lee Siew Hua

PUSHING wages up to fully offset inflation is a risky move, as workers will end up paying ever-higher prices.

Labour chief Lim Swee Say highlighted this vicious circle on Thursday in a message for National Day, calling on workers to moderate wage expectations.

'Instead of pushing wages up to fully offset inflation, we must continue to link built-in wage increase to productivity gain and help our people through various non-wage measures', he said.

This will prevent a 'price-wage spiral'.

His message came as the second-quarter jobs figures released by the Mnistry of Manpower on Thursday showed job creation moderated to 70,600 from April to June and the unemployment rate creeping up to 2.3 per cent.