Australia’s GDP in March continued to grow but also continued to grow weakly. It is a situation that we have become all too accustomed to and reflects the state of the economy where, because of the shift from mining investment to exports, a massive jump in profits no longer translates into a boost for wages or jobs.

In March Australia’s GDP increased by 0.3% in seasonally adjusted terms – in line with expectations and sharply down on the 1.1% growth recorded in the December quarter last year:

And while this growth is welcome, we really should not get too caught up in claims of some record run without a recession. Not only, as I pointed out on Tuesday, is there no such record, it also disguises the fact that growth at the moment is pathetic.

Australia’s economy has grown by just 1.7% in the past 12 months – half of what is now considered the long-term average of 2.75%.

The picture for GDP per capita growth is even worse. In seasonally adjusted terms, it fell in March by 0.1% – the third fall in the past two years. In the past year GDP per capita grew by just 0.2%, the worst growth since the GFC and at a level historically associated with a recession:

If you do want to talk records, here’s one. In the past 18 quarters, Australia’s annual GDP growth has never been above 3% – the longest such run since the ABS began calculating quarterly GDP in 1959:

In the past nine years there have only been four quarters where annual GDP growth has been above 3% – a growth rate that used to be considered merely average. And we can no longer find succour from comparing ourselves with the rest of the world.

Three months ago when talking up the GDP figures, Scott Morrison boasted that Australia’s economy was growing faster than any of the G7 nations. Well no longer.

Our growth now lags behind the UK, US and Canada and well back in the pack of all OECD nations:

The reason for the growth is also not particularly invigorating.

The largest contributor in the March quarter was “change in inventories”. This is essentially companies building up their stocks. This was mostly done by the mining sector, which, as the treasurer noted, was largely due to their taking advantage of a spike in mineral prices by running down stock in December and thus in March they built them up again.

That’s not a bad sign but, as the treasurer also noted, it often cancels out the impact of exports – the volume of which actually fell in March:

This is always the problem with having an economy that derives a large amount of growth from exports – it is erratic:

The other big drag on the economy in March was dwelling construction – reducing GDP growth in March by 0.2% points.

The housing construction boom is over:

The biggest driver of growth over the past year was household consumption. And while that is not unusual, the reasons highlight why we have such weak growth at the moment.

With real wages falling and the total number of hours worked growing by just 0.5% over the past year, it is somewhat surprising that household consumption continues to bolster GDP growth. But we are spending not because we are flush with cash but because we are eating into our savings.

The savings ratio is now back to levels not seen since the GFC hit:

But despite the large drop in our savings rate since 2011, the growth rate of our spending has not risen – it remains at a historically low 2.4%:

This is also observed through the disconnect of wages with nominal GDP growth.

Weak nominal GDP growth has been the bane of governments since the GFC hit. Nominal GDP growth is generally linked to tax revenue better than is real GDP growth. And, in the past six months, nominal GDP growth has taken off – up 7.7% over the past year.

The reason has been the surge in exports prices – which has seen the terms of trade grow a stunning 25% over the past year.

But his boom of income is not being felt by workers – while nominal GDP is spiking, wages growth is falling:

Essentially all the surge in nominal GDP is going to profits. Corporate gross operating surplus (as good proxy for profits) rose 20.1% in the past year – the best growth for eight years. But wages are not responding:

The big jump in profits is mostly going to the mining sector – a sector where employment is down 12% on where it was five years ago. Thus whereas during the mining boom years the big mining profits led to job growth and big wages that then filtered through the economy, that is not happening this time.

In fact real labour costs in the past year fell 6% – the biggest one-year fall in history:

For all the talk of a record run without a recession, the reality is such records don’t pay the bills. We have had a record period in this country without a recession and yet we also have wages growing at levels that you normally would associate with a recession.

Yes it has been a long time since Australia experienced a recession. But it is now close to a decade since we also experienced consistent strong growth of the type that leads to strong jobs and wages growth – and there is little in these figures to suggest that situation is about to change.

• This article was amended on 9 June 2017 to correct an incorrect GDP figure.