Indeed Wage Tracker: Euro Area Wage Growth Picked up in June

10 July 2024

By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Wage growth in jobs advertised online in euro area countries picked up in June, according to the latest Indeed Wage Tracker.

On a year-over-year basis, wage growth increased from 3.5% in May to 4.2% in June. Looking at the three-month moving average, the increase was from 3.5% in May to 3.7% in June.

The main contributors to wage growth in June were Italy (5.7% y/y vs 2.6% prev), the Netherlands (8.3% vs 7.3%) and Spain (4.9% vs 3.7%), according to Indeed data.

Wage growth remained stable in Germany in June (3.8% vs 3.8%), while in Ireland there was a slight decrease (4.2% vs 4.3%), the data showed.

Deceleration was pronounced in France, which saw a decrease from 2.1% y/y in May to 1.6% in June, according to Indeed.

In comments during the ECB Forum on Central Banking last week, ECB President Christine Lagarde and Chief Economist Philip Lane stressed that it would be important to keep monitoring the labour component of services inflation.

‘Now, we are still facing several uncertainties regarding future inflation, especially in terms of how the nexus of profits, wages and productivity will evolve and whether the economy will be hit by new supply-side shocks’, Lagarde said. ‘And it will take time for us to gather sufficient data to be certain that the risks of above-target inflation have passed.’

In this context, the latest Indeed data strengthen the argument in favour of waiting until September to consider another interest rate cut.