UK wage growth slowed marginally in the three months to August while job vacancies fell, boosting the chances that the Bank of England will leave interest rates unchanged at its November meeting.
Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that average total pay was 8.1% over the three-month period to August than a year earlier, down from a growth rate of 8.5% the previous month, and below expectations.
Regular pay growth, excluding bonuses, slowed from 7.9% to 7.8%.
"This total growth rate is affected by the NHS and civil service one-off payments made in June, July and August 2023," the ONS noted.
The number of job vacancies in the July to September period was 988,000, a decrease of 43,000 from April to June, the 15th consecutive quarterly fall.
Vacancies fell in 14 of 18 industry sectors surveyed.
In July to September 2023, total vacancies were down by 256,000 from the level of a year ago, although they remained 187,000 above their pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic January to March 2020 levels.
Ashley Webb at Capital Economics said the "cooling labour market conditions appeared to start feeding through into an easing in wage growth in August.”
“That supports our view that interest rates have peaked at 5.25%.”
“But as we suspect wage growth will fall only slowly, interest rates will probably stay at their peak until late in 2024.”