LONDON – Advertised salaries in Britain hit their lowest level in six months in October, indicating easing inflation pressure, but a first rise in vacancies since June suggested a recovery in the labour market, a survey showed on Nov 27.

Job search website Adzuna said annual advertised salaries averaged £36,946 (S$62,400) in October, down 0.4 per cent from September and taking the decline since April to 1.9 per cent.

“Falling advertised salaries may not appear to be good news for job seekers, but it does signal that the menace of inflation is finally in retreat,” Mr Andrew Hunter, co-founder of Adzuna, said.

However, online job advertisements climbed 0.35 per cent to 1.03 million ads, the biggest month-on-month jump since June, helped by pre-Christmas hiring in sectors such as retail and warehousing.

The Bank of England has held interest rates at its last two meetings after 14 increases in a row, but it is closely watching for signs of inflation pressure in the job market.

Britain’s official budget forecasters warned last week that price growth would be more persistent than it previously thought.

Employers have struggled to fill jobs in recent years after many workers left the labour market during the Covid-19 pandemic, with Brexit also reducing the supply of candidates.

An official measure of vacancies, published earlier in November, showed that job openings hit a two-year low of 957,000 in the three months to October and near-record wage growth cooled slightly from in the quarter to September.

Adzuna’s measure of the number of job seekers per vacancy rose marginally, and companies needed the least time to fill roles so far in 2023. REUTERS