Wages rising faster than inflation as jobs market begins to weaken

This makes it the first time in two years that pay has outpaced inflation in the quarter. However, this has been coupled with a drop in the number of vacancies in the UK, falling by 58,000 to 957,000 between August and October 2023 – with this being the 16th consecutive quarter that vacancies have fallen. 

Meanwhile, the latest estimated number of payrolled employees in October increased by 33,000 on the revised September to 30.2 million.   

Additionally, alternative estimates for July and September suggest the UK employment rate decreased by 0.1% to 75.7%, while both the UK unemployment and economic inactivity rate remained largely unchanged in the quarter at 4.2% and 20.9% respectively.

 
Alongside this, average weekly earnings were estimated to be at £673 for total pay and £621 for regular pay in September. As well as this, the annual growth in employees’ average total – including bonuses – went up to 7.9% between July and September, with this being one of the largest annual growth rates seen outside of the Covid-19 period.

However, this total pay annual growth rate is affected by the civil service one-off non-consolidated payments made in July and August.