Healey’s cost of living battle just got harder as workers face ‘real terms pay cut’

Andy Burnham and John Healey have spoken at length about efforts to provide “breathing space” to both households and businesses. This task at next week s Budget has now become more difficult.  Over the summer the jobs market continued to weaken. Workers are at risk of being worse off while job seekers are finding it harder to secure new gigs and hiring appetite cools.  Including bonuses, wage growth continued to slow, falling to 3.7 per cent. When bonuses are excluded, the annualised growth in average weekly earnings remained at the lowest level in six years. These earnings are partly satisfactory to the Bank of England, which worries about a spike in wages fuelling higher prices set by firms. Although they remain far lower than public sector pay settlements, private sector earnings growth is at a level consistent with the Bank of England’s target to reach two per cent inflation in the medium term. However, what might worry the government more than it does the Monet