Are there signs of an improvement in wage earners’ bargaining power in the United States or the euro zone?

Hiring difficulties and the number of job vacancies relative to the number of job seekers have increased since mid- 2021 in the United States and the euro zone, and are still at a fairly high level. The unemployment rate remains low, while the quit rate, although falling, remains high. In principle, these developments should show that wage earners’ bargaining power has increased, and therefore that real wages have risen faster relative to labour productivity than in the past. In both the United States and the euro zone, we can see that since 2016 and since 2021, per capita wages have been rising less quickly than labour productivity, meaning that the tight labour market has not led to an improvement in wage earners’ bargaining power.