A new report says public servants' wage rises will fail to keep pace with growing inflation.

The Department of Jobs and Small Business report suggests that public sector workers who secured new workplace deals in the September quarter will average 2 per cent in wage rises.

The growth in public servant salaries under new agreements will struggle to keep pace with cost of living rises, which could see wage increases turn into pay cuts in real terms.

The government is forecasting inflation will climb from 1.9 per cent to 2.25 per cent next year. 

The report is based on new workplace agreements at two of the government's largest agencies, Defence and the Australian Taxation Office, as well as Australia Post and the CSIRO.

These are among the departments to have reached industrial deals covering public servants until 2020. 

“The government's approach has cost public service workers and their families and hurt the whole economy,” said Community and Public Sector Union acting national secretary Michael Tull.

Mr Tull said the data also did not reveal damage caused by the government's wage freezes during bargaining.

“Commonwealth public sector workers whose new agreements are recorded in this report had their wages frozen for more than three years, so the reality is their pay rises amount to less than 1 per cent a year,” he said. 

“That means the wages of tens of thousands of Commonwealth public sector workers have gone backwards in real terms since the Coalition came to power.”

Mr Tull said some pay rises under the latest round of deals were the worst on record.

“The Turnbull government should be leading by example to encourage the decent wages growth that's urgently needed for our economy and ordinary Australians currently suffering as their pay packets remain stagnant or go backwards, but they've instead made the problem even worse with wage freezes and other hardball industrial tactics.”