This analysis points to a slowdown in the improvement of wages in offers in all the countries analyzed; only cases such as Spain, France and Italy resisted during December, but what did occur in these cases was a stagnation, and this situation leads the authors of the study to conclude that “post-pandemic wage growth has bottomed out”.
This conclusion is an endorsement of the thesis of the Fed and the ECB that the tightening of monetary policy could “cool” the labor market without causing a significant rebound in unemployment. Although what worries these institutions most right now is not so much the lack of labor, but the fact that companies are forced to raise wages, not only to hire, but also to prevent their workers from going to other companies.
In this sense, the analysis by Indeed gives a clear view of what the entity would be willing to pay those who hire, an interesting fact, especially in countries like Spain, where the only indicator of salary negotiation comes from collective agreements. In 2022 it closed at 2.7%, well below the 3.9% of offers.
In addition, in Spain, underlying inflation exceeds the general one (5.7%) and stands at 7%. Salary offers remain well below the rest. And one of the reasons is that Spain is one of the countries in the sample, with the lowest vacancy rate, they do not reach 0.9%, compared to 4.3% in Germany. Although 34% of companies see a problem in the lack of labor.