Key Points:
- Job postings have been flat over the past two months.
- The labour market has loosened but remains fairly tight.
- Robust wage growth is good for workers but remains a headache for the Bank of England.
The labour market remains fairly tight, supporting strong wage growth. But after a period of continuous cooling from post-pandemic highs over the past roughly 18 months, hiring demand levelled out over the past few weeks.
Spotlight: Job postings have stabilised
Job postings have stabilised at close to pre-pandemic levels. After peaking at almost 70% above their pre-pandemic baseline in early 2022, UK job postings on Indeed gradually retreated largely through May 2024. But since then, job postings have remained largely flat, and as of 19 July stood just 0.5% below their 1 February 2020 baseline. The stabilisation of hiring demand comes amid decent recent economic data. But these are relatively modest signs of progress, and it remains unclear when and by how much the Bank of England may feel comfortable enough with these improvements and the pace of inflation to begin lowering restrictive interest rates from their 16-year high.
Labour market remains fairly tight…
UK vacancies have fallen and unemployment has edged up over the past few months, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ratio of unemployed people to vacancies – an indicator of labour market tightness – has risen in recent months to 1.7, indicating some loosening, but remains well below its average over the past couple of decades (2.9). One factor contributing to the residual tightness is that inactivity remains considerably higher than pre-pandemic levels, with more than 800,000 additional working-age people not actively participating in the labour force versus February 2020.
…supporting robust wage growth
Though the latest ONS figures showed a further easing of wage growth, it remains strong at 5.7% year-on-year. That’s good for workers, whose regular wages are up 2.5% year-on-year in real terms, continuing to exceed the pace of inflation – which has slowed, but remains distressingly persistent in some pockets of the economy. But consistently high wage growth remains a concern for policymakers at the Bank of England (BoE) as it could mean inflation pressures remain difficult to contain.
Conclusion
With the economic backdrop gradually improving and the general election behind us, hiring demand has stabilised. But the labour market remains fairly tight and continues to generate robust pay pressures. The longer wage growth remains high, the harder it will be for the BoE to deliver rate cuts. And the longer rates stay at their current elevated levels, the longer it will take for strong economic headwinds to fully fade.
From a recruitment perspective, remaining competitive on pay continues to be important, particularly in lower-paid categories where hiring challenges remain strongest.
Hiring Lab Data
Job postings data is available on our Data Portal. We also host the underlying job-postings chart data on Github as downloadable CSV files. Typically, it will be updated with the latest data one day after this blog post is published.
Methodology
Data on seasonally adjusted Indeed job postings are an index of the number of seasonally adjusted job postings on a given day, using a seven-day trailing average. Feb. 1, 2020, is our pre-pandemic baseline, so the index is set to 100 on that day. We seasonally adjust each series based on historical patterns in 2017, 2018, and 2019. We adopted this methodology in January 2021. Data for several dates in 2021 and 2022 are missing and were interpolated. Non-seasonally adjusted data are calculated in a similar manner, except that the data are not adjusted to historical patterns. Note that we have recently restated the historical JPI data for several countries, including the UK, due to a methodology change.
To calculate the average rate of wage growth, we follow an approach similar to the Atlanta Fed US Wage Growth Tracker, but we track jobs, not individuals. We begin by calculating the median posted wage for each country, month, job title, region and salary type (hourly, monthly or annual). Within each country, we then calculate year-on-year wage growth for each job title-region-salary type combination, generating a monthly distribution. Our monthly measure of wage growth for the country is the median of that distribution.
The number of job postings on Indeed.com, whether related to paid or unpaid job solicitations, is not indicative of potential revenue or earnings of Indeed, which comprises a significant percentage of the HR Technology segment of its parent company, Recruit Holdings Co., Ltd. Job posting numbers are provided for information purposes only and should not be viewed as an indicator of performance of Indeed or Recruit. Please refer to the Recruit Holdings investor relations website and regulatory filings in Japan for more detailed information on revenue generation by Recruit’s HR Technology segment.
