LONDON (Reuters) – British wages grew slightly less fast in the three months to September but remained close to their record pace, according to official data that will do little to ease the Bank of England’s concerns about inflation pressures.
Earnings excluding bonuses were 7.7% higher than a year earlier in the third quarter, the figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed on Tuesday.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast a 7.7% rise.
The figure represented a slight slowdown in regular pay growth from 7.9% in the previous two ONS reports, the highest since the data collection began in 2001.
The BoE is watching pay growth as it assesses how much inflation pressure remains in Britain’s economy after it raised interest rates 14 times in a row between December 2021 and August this year, since when it has kept rates on hold.
Including bonuses, which are typically volatile, pay growth slowed to 7.9% from 8.2% in the three months to August.
The BoE has said pay growth is dropping too slowly for it to consider cutting interest rates although the central bank has said unofficial estimates of wage increases suggest a less steep climb than the numbers from the Office for National Statistics.
Sterling edged up against the U.S. dollar and the euro immediately after the ONS released its figures.
Some other measures of Britain’s jobs market have suggested a cooling of the inflationary heat in recent months and Tuesday’s data showed a fall in vacancies to their lowest level since the April-to-June period in 2021.
(Reporting by William Schomberg and Sachin Ravikumar, Editing by Kylie MacLellan and David Milliken)
