Wage Tracker shows first slowdown in growth in over a year

The Indeed Wage Tracker published by the online jobs site Indeed.com, showed that in November wage growth slowed across economies in Europe, the UK and the US.

The Indeed Wage Tracker measures growth in wages advertised in job postings to help policymakers, labor market analysts, employers, and workers understand wage trends quickly and confidently. They publish country-level trends for 8 countries: the UK, the US, and six euro-area countries — France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain — that jointly account for over 80% of euro-area employment.

Its statistics shows annual wage growth slowing from a peak of 5.2% in July and August to 4.6% in November for Ireland

The Wage Tracker also shows that wages rates across the six euro area countries tracked – which includes Ireland – fell marginally from an annual rate of 5.2% in October to 5.1% in November.

The US figures were particularly significant, because at the current rate, posted wage growth in the US could return to its pre-pandemic rate of 3-4% by the second half of 2023.

Director of economic research at Indeed, Pawel Adrjan, said: “Although neither our tracker nor the aggregate employment and unemployment figures suggest a significant labour market weakening in any of the countries we follow, posted wages may be significantly forward-looking. Their slowing growth hints the uncertain economic outlook could be starting to weigh on labour markets, consistent with the slight decline in job vacancy rates in Europe.

“It is too early to say whether these small shifts represent a turning point for wage growth; however, they do point to the risk of wage-price spirals being limited. These trends could lead to a moderation of worker wage demands in 2023, even as inflation remains high.”