By Suban Abdulla

LONDON (Reuters) – Starting salaries advertised in Britain reached the highest level in two years in April and there were the most job vacancies since December, suggesting some recovery in the labour market, according to job search website Adzuna.

Adzuna’s survey showed advertised annual salaries had increased each month since October 2022, reaching an average of 37,658 pounds ($47,528) in April, up 2.9% on a year earlier. This was still slightly below the 37,898 pounds average in April 2021, when they were the highest since Adzuna’s records began in 2016.

Trends in advertised salaries differ from those collected by Britain’s Office for National Statistics for average earnings across the workforce as a whole.

Basic wages in Britain in the first quarter of this year were 6.7% higher than a year earlier and were an average of 598 pounds a week in March – equivalent to 31,096 pounds a year, an all-time high in nominal terms.

However, pay has not kept up with annual consumer price inflation in Britain, which eased to 8.7% in April.

The Bank of England, which increased interest rates to 4.5% in May and is expected to raise Bank Rate further, is closely monitoring inflation pressure in the jobs market but has said it expects pay growth to slow.

Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies, said the Adzuna figures potentially reflected continued strong demand in the economy rather than chronic shortages and jobs going unfilled.

“Combined with pretty modest growth in advertised salaries, this also suggests that some of the inflationary pressures from the labour market may be starting to ease,” Wilson said.

Overall online job adverts climbed 0.18% month-on-month to about 1.046 million postings in April, the highest since December 2022. Previous ONS data showed 1.086 million job vacancies in April on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, down from 1.359 million a year earlier.

Andrew Hunter, co-founder at Adzuna, said his data pointed to recovery in Britain’s job market, but that there was still some volatility.

“It’s clear that the job market is still volatile, but we are encouraged by the steady growth we’re seeing.”

There was also a steady climb in the Adzuna’s gauge of the average number of people applying for the same role.

($1 = 0.7923 pounds)

(Reporting by Suban Abdulla; editing by David Milliken)

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