US hourly wages grow in line with forecast in November

The growth in average hourly wages paid to workers in the US was in line with expectations in November, official data released on Friday showed.

According to government figures, average hourly wages increased 0.2% month-on-month in November, in line with consensus but slightly below the 0.4% gain registered in October.

On a year-on-year basis, hourly wages were again in line with expectations as they climbed 2.3%, marginally less than the 2.5% advance posted in the previous month, while the amount of time people worked each week fell to 34.5 hours.

“Where average wages had previously been looking like they’d been coming in at around 2% a month throughout 2015, recent upward revisions show that wages have actually been rising more like 3% to 4% most recently, so it’s little wonder that when Janet Yellen spoke on Wednesday she was more upbeat than usual about the US economy, including speaking of diminishing risks from abroad,” said Simon Smith, chief economist at FxPro.