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BOE Agent's Survey: No big change in tone on wage growth

BOE
  • "We are getting more evidence that average pay growth for 2024 will be lower than 2023 in line with the recent pay survey." (previously similar language was used but referred to "early indications"). There is no other real discussion of wages in this release - this is the most notable part.
  • Reduction in head count remains low but "a small number of businesses indicated that they are hoarding less labour than before as they perceive it to be less difficult to recruit in the future."
  • "Churn continues to decrease, reflecting uncertainty in the labour market and firms holding fewer vacancies. Recruitment difficulties continue to ease although some local labour markets and sectors such as engineering, software and manufacturing continue to struggle." Last quarter there was no specific discussion of which sectors were seeing difficulties.
  • "Firms also have no intention of making one-off cost of living payments in 2024. To the extent that firms reported one-off payments in their wage bill, this would fall out of the annual comparison and be a downward influence on pay growth in 2024." Previously "most contacts do not expect to make ‘cost of living’ payments" - so that is a firming to the language.
  • "As expected, contacts in consumer services and goods continued to report higher pay settlements than other sectors given the proportion of their workforce impacted by the National Living Wage (NLW). Businesses expect to manage the NLW increase by eroding differentials and/or reducing headcount or hours, or by passing on labour costs into prices, though usually only partially." There is no talk of this from the previous survey however: "Contacts report that the ripple effect of statutory or voluntary (Real Living Wage) increases in minima reach quite a way up the pay distribution."

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