The average wage in the enterprise sector increased by 9.2% yoy in January, compared to an increase of 9.8% yoy in December. The reading was in line with the market consensus (9.1%). Although the wage growth have clearly slowed down, we interpret the January result as solid. Why? Mainly due to the high base effect from a year ago weighing on today’s reading. It was due to an unprecedentedly high increase in the minimum wage in 2024, which amounted to almost 22% yoy. In 2025 we entered the new year with an significantly smaller increase, namely by less than 10% yoy. Currently, the minimum wage is PLN 4,666, which is over PLN 400 more than a year ago. Such a significant slowdown in the pace of growth of the minimum wage potentially translates not only into proportionally lower wage growth for people receiving the minimum wage, but also into the lack of increased wage expectations generated by the aforementioned minimum wage hike, which we observed a year ago. These effects dragged the January reading down significantly, and we still saw a rebound in wage momentum to around 9%, although it was clearly weaker than a year ago. This means that wage pressure remains strong, which is a significant barrier to a decline in wage growth back to "normal" pre-pandemic levels (6-7% yoy) and may be a concern for the MPC in the context of a permanent return of inflation to its target. 
The wage growth should remain below 10% in the coming months, but it will stabilize around 9% with no chance of spectacular declines. At the same time, 7% will be a symbolic limit this year, below which wage growth will fall, but only once or twice throughout the year.
 

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 0.9% yoy in January, compared to a 0.6% drop in December. This is a solid negative surprise, as the consensus expected a 0.7% drop in employment. According to the StatOffice, the number of full-time jobs increased by only 1.3k compared to the previous month. Why such a poor increase in average employment? This is by no means a sign of a sudden collapse of the Polish labor market, but merely a fluctuation characteristic of January. It results from the annual change in the sample of companies from the enterprise sector surveyed by the StatOffice and is largely difficult to estimate a priori. It correlates in part with the level of economic activity in the previous year and changes in employment in the same period. And since 2024 was quite a weak year for the domestic labor market, the January result is also one of the worst readings in the last 20 years. At the same time, it is a very low starting point for employment growth this year, which will prevent the employment growth from coming back to positive annual growth rate. 
Nevertheless, analysts must treat the January reading as some kind of white noise, as it does not provide much information on the current condition of the domestic labor market, so only the February data will provide us with new information on this topic. However, we do not expect a visible improvement in the stagnant trends observed recently in employment. This would require more favorable economic conditions, and in particular a strengthening of the demand side both domestically and abroad, for which we will have to wait at least a few more months.

Change in average employment in the enterprise sector in January (thousand full-time equivalents mom)

Source: StatOffice, Pekao Research