NI ESR Monthly Wage Tracker - Cost-of-Living Pressures May Alter Work Patterns in 2023

As we expected last month, the disparity between private and public sector wage growth continues to decrease, as workers in the private sector saw average regular pay growth of 7.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022 – a record high outside of the pandemic period - while workers in the public sector saw 4.2 per cent. [...] • Though the fourth quarter of 2022 saw regular pay growth that is once again the largest observed outside of the pandemic period, today’s estimates also highlight that real regular pay in the UK fell by 2.5 per cent, remaining among the largest falls in growth since comparable records began in 2001. [...] The most recent report by Hiring Lab - the economic research branch owned by and utilising the proprietary data of job-posting site Indeed – notes that rising searches for part-time, weekend and night shift work in the three months to January may be a sign of workers taking on extra hours to offset the ongoing erosion of their real incomes. [...] • The disparity in public and private sector wages has fallen for a third consecutive month, though it remains among the largest seen outside of the pandemic period, with private sector regular pay growing by 7.3 per cent while regular pay in the public sector grew by 4.2 per cent. [...] The Bank of England’s February Monetary Policy Report attributes the rise in private sector wage inflation over the course of 2022 to elevated short-term inflation expectations (which the Bank estimates to have been 4 per cent in the National Institute of Economic and Social Research niesr.ac.uk .