Wage pressures: a perspective from online job advertisements

This is a preview from the Quarterly UK Economic Outlook, November 2021.

Advertised pay in job postings on job listings website Indeed is rising fast in sectors where surging demand for new workers has outpaced supply. In rebounding sectors like food, distribution, construction and manufacturing, employers have been hiring at pace for months. However, the supply of jobseekers in those sectors has not kept up, leading to reports of labour shortages.

The result has been hefty increases in advertised pay for certain categories, adjusting for shifts in the mix of job titles within each occupation and the location of jobs over time. But across the economy more broadly, advertised pay has been rising at a much more modest pace.

The analysis in this Box has been prepared by Jack Kennedy, UK economist at Indeed.