Minutes from the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee meeting on 21st June have shed some interesting light on the wage growth vs inflation debate.
Unions have been at loggerheads with the government for several months over giving essential workers a pay rise to meet the rising cost of living.
Junior doctors in England are the latest to announce a five-day strike next month in a dramatic escalation of their dispute with the Government over pay and staffing.
Members of the British Medical Association (BMA) will walk out from July 13th to 18th in what the association said is thought to be the longest single period of industrial action in the history of the health service.
Elsewhere, other health professionals and railway workers are among those to have resorted to industrial action following a prolonged period of wage stagnation.
The government says upping wages would just contribute to inflation, yet minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee meeting on 21st June 2023 seem to say differently.
They note that the annual private sector regular Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) growth had increased by 0.5 percentage points to 7.6 per cent in the three months to April, 0.5 percentage points above the expectation at the time of the May Report.
But the pick-up on annual growth is concentrated in higher-paying sectors such as financial and business services.
Pay growth in lower-paid sectors like wholesaling, retailing, hotels and restaurants, meanwhile, has been broadly flat.
Just goes to show who the government is really looking out for.
Related: Eight in ten Brits are dissatisfied with how the government is running the country