Significant Changes in the Labour Markets assess trends in consensus forecasts for wage variables and unemployment in six of the major economies surveyed. We also look at how wage and unemployment trends are shaping up for 2015. One feature of note in these charts is the progressive moderation in forecasts for 2014 and 2015 unemployment. It has been ashakyH1 2014-forexample, the United States saw a decline in GDP in Q1 while economic fundamentals eroded for Japan, Germany, France and the Euro zone as a whole in Q2. Despite this, the US job market is delivering still-solid gains while forecasts for employment costs have started to edge up again. In the United Kingdom, a robust job market has picked up alongside economic growth, especially in the South-East. Interestingly, though, the 2014 consensus for average earnings has faltered after gains earlier in the year. The recovery is still taking time to filter through to salaries, it seems, after more than 5 years of falling real wages. France's jobless forecasts saw a notable drop after January 2014, but this was entirely due to modified methodology of the official unemployment rate. In reality, joblessness is weighing heavily on French household sentiment as employment falls and activity stagnates. The Euro area is finally seeing the outlook for unemployment improve, but this follows years of recession and very high joblessness, especially in the periphery countries. Japan's job market also appears to be on a moderately stronger bent, but even though consumer price rises have picked up (by Japanese standards), wage increases are still below inflation.
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