UK Average Earnings ex-Bonus rose 7.8% 3M YoY in August, as expected

Wage inflation in the United Kingdom (UK), as measured by the change in the Average Earnings Excluding Bonus, rose 7.8% 3M YoY in August, as against a 7.9% increase registered in July, the partial labor data released by the Office for National Statistics (NBS) showed on Tuesday. The market expectation was for a 7.8% increase.

Average Earnings Including Bonus rose 8.1% in the same period, at a slightly weaker pace than analysts' estimate of 8.3%. The August increase in pay growth was of 8.5%.

In September, 11,000 fewer people were in payrolled employment when compared with August.

Additional details

The ONS delayed the release of employment data by a week to improve the quality of the data, wage data was released as planned.

Pound Sterling reaction to the UK wage inflation data

With the immediate market reaction, the Pound Sterling tested intraday lows below 1.2200 on mixed inflation readings. As of writing, GBP/USD was down 0.20% on the day at 1.2190.

The data was expected to have little impact on the Pound Sterling as the Bank of England (BoE) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) threw cold water on pay growth data at the September meeting.