The average wage in the enterprise sector increased by 9.8% yoy in December, compared to an increase of 10.5% yoy in November. The reading was substantially lower than forecasts (consensus: 11%, ours: 11.3%). Therefore, it came as a significant surprise. Additionally, this marked the first single-digit reading of the wage growth in a year. Unfortunately, this is not a signal of a sudden weakening of wage pressure nor does it signal an acceleration of the downward trend in wage growth, but only a feature of a volatile December. By this we mean the scale of bonuses that are paid at the end of the year. One of them is the payments on the occasion of Miner's Day (also known as St. Barbara's Day), which were significantly less generous in 2024 than a year earlier. In addition, December is also the time for distributing Christmas bonuses, the amount of which is often related to the financial situation of the company, and as we know, employment costs were a heavy burden for employers in 2024. Hence, Christmas bonuses could have been more modest than usual.
The December reading does not change our wage forecast for 2025 – we believe that today's data was weakened mainly by one-off factors, and such a clear slowdown in wage momentum is not permanent. However, this does not change the fact that the wage growth can only move in one direction, namely downwards. There are a number of reasons for this – from a significantly lower increase in the minimum wage than a year earlier, through weakening wage pressure, to the still mediocre sentiment of Polish employers. 2025 will be marked by single-digit wage increases, but they will still be much higher than those we observed before the inflation shock. We forecast that wages will increase by 8.7% on average this year, and in 2026 they will slow down to 7.7%. 

Wage momentum (% yoy SA)

Meaning how much would the annual wage dynamics be if the current monthly dynamics after seasonal adjustment lasted the entire year

Source: StatOffice, Pekao Research

Average employment in the enterprise sector fell by 0.6% yoy in December, compared to a 0.5% drop in November. This is another surprise for analysts who had expected a 0.5% drop in employment. According to the StatOffice, the number of full-time jobs fell by 9k compared to the previous month. This is quite a lot for December – usually, employment stagnates in this month, and the last December drop of a comparable scale was recorded in 2013. On the one hand, this is a signal of the continuing weakness of the domestic labour market in terms of demand for labour, but on the other hand, it is a kind of compensation for the positive surprise from a month ago. December's disappointment is largely the result of layoffs or cutting hours in mining and manufacturing (the latter was the black sheep of the Polish labour market last year). Today's data indicate that it is not yet time for the domestic labour market to rebuild, but we believe it may begin to move in that direction soon. We forecast that in 2025 we will see a modest increase in employment by 0.1% yoy, while 2026 will bring its broader recovery.

Cumulative change in employment since January each year (thousands)

Source: StatOffice, Pekao Research