BoE’s Haldane says not yet ‘chocks away’ for UK wages: Economist

LONDON (Reuters) – Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane said in an interview published on Thursday that wage growth in Britain did not look about to take flight, after previously talking of a “new dawn” for pay.

“We’re not talking about … chocks away,” he told Britain’s Economist newspaper, when asked about a pick-up in wage growth to around 3 percent in recent official data.

Last month Haldane set he saw a “new dawn” breaking for pay in Britain, after previous false dawns when BoE forecasts of stronger wage growth had proven premature.

Figures earlier this week showed that wages excluding bonuses grew at their fastest rate since the end of 2008 during the three months to September, up 3.2 percent on the year.

Haldane was ahead of most of his colleagues on the central bank’s Monetary Policy Committee in calling for the BoE’s only two interest rate rises since the financial crisis, having previously been viewed as one of the MPC’s more dovish members.

But he denied that his analysis of Britain’s economy had fundamentally altered since he joined the MPC in June 2014.

“It’s not like my preferences around the economy have changed,” he said.

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