At least some of that is attributable to last year\u2019s employer National Insurance (payroll) tax and hike to the minimum wage, policy changes which have had a much more tangible impact on employment than inflation. That\u2019s likely to be the playbook in the current energy crisis, too. Last year\u2019s experience showed that corporate pricing power is diminished. And higher oil prices are likely to put renewed upward pressure on unemployment. <\/p>\n
That is not a backdrop that is conducive to a renewed spike in wage growth. Private sector pay growth dipped to 3.2% in the most recent data, which, according to the Bank of England\u2019s analysis in February, is consistent with a 2% inflation target. With headline inflation poised to rise towards 4% in Q3, it suggests real wages are set to fall and pressure on economic growth will mount.<\/p>\n
Overall, today\u2019s report is a reminder that the UK jobs market is going into the current energy crisis in a fragile state \u2013 and crucially, much weaker than it was in February 2022 at the onset of the last oil\/natural gas shock. For the time being, we think the Bank will opt against rate hikes this year, keeping the Bank Rate at 3.75% instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At least some of that is attributable to last year\u2019s employer National Insurance (payroll) tax and hike to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-542513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}