Workers’ Pay Globally Hasn’t Kept Up With Inflation

Wage growth across advanced economies is plateauing or declining from high levels. For central banks, it is good news: There are no signs of a spiral in which wages push up prices, which push up wages again. That makes it more likely inflation could decline without a significant increase in unemployment.

For workers, though, it is less positive. Wages rose faster last year than in the previous two years, but not as much as prices across major advanced economies, according to projections by the International Labour Organization. Workers’ purchasing power—their average inflation-adjusted wage—was lower last year than in 2019, before the pandemic, according to the report. So despite strong demand for workers and ultralow unemployment, labor’s share of economic output shrank in many advanced economies.

In the U.S., nominal wage growth—meaning unadjusted for inflation—has slowed sharply since the middle of last year, according to a variety of measures. Average hourly earnings for private-sector nonfarm workers rose 4.4% in the 12 months through January, down from 5.6% last March and less than the 6.4% rise in consumer prices in the year through January.

In Europe, average wage growth across six countries declined to 4.9% in December from 5.2% in November, according to a report by Ireland’s central bank and the recruitment company Indeed, which tracks advertised wages across millions of online job ads. Inflation in the eurozone ended the year at 9.2%.

In Canada, central bank chief Tiff Macklem highlighted easing wage growth to explain the bank’s recent decision to pause interest-rate increases after raising its key rate to 4.5%, the highest level in 15 years.

“Wage growth is currently running between 4% and 5% and appears to have plateaued within that range… The risk of a wage-price spiral has diminished,” Mr. Macklem said.

Economists have noted that pay growth tends to lag, not lead, inflation as workers and employers adjust pay expectations to the prices they have experienced. Thus, the recent decline in pay growth might reflect, with a lag, the fact inflation peaked around summer and fall of last year in major economies like the U.S. and eurozone and has since declined, as energy prices fell sharply and global supply-chain pressures eased.

Why, though, did wages never catch up with inflation in the first place? One reason is that wages tend to be sticky, changing relatively slowly and sluggishly—over months and years—while prices can change more rapidly. Firms might be wary of raising wages aggressively since cutting them later would be bad for morale.

Now, slowing economic growth and the threat of layoffs might be tempering workers’ demands, said Andrea Garnero, an economist with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Labor unions in Europe have grown more concerned about job security than wages, he said.

Workers’ pay demands have been reasonable in part because their incomes were supported by government aid during the pandemic and energy crisis, said Gabriel Makhlouf, governor of Ireland’s central bank. “People understand that they can make things worse if they require the wrong [pay] deal,” he said in an interview.

Crucially, the number of workers, which shrank in the first months of the pandemic, is rebounding in many advanced economies, helping to ease shortages.

Some workers who left the labor force during the pandemic are being tempted back as pandemic savings dwindle and are eroded by inflation. Almost 83% of Americans ages 25-54 are working or actively looking for work, roughly back to the pre pandemic rate, according to the U.S. Labor Department. About 86.5% of Europeans ages 25-54 have jobs or are actively searching, 1 percentage point above prepandemic levels. The U.K. stands out for a decline in its labor-force participation coupled with unusually strong wage growth, suggesting that a shortage of workers could be driving pay higher.

Immigration has also rebounded strongly in recent months, hitting record levels in Canada, Spain and Germany as some governments try to make up for shortfalls during the pandemic.

In the U.S., net international migration added more than a million people to the population in the year through mid-2022, the Census Bureau said. Migrant workers could have helped fuel January’s robust 517,000 increase in nonfarm payrolls while keeping wage inflation moderate, said Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management. The same forces could be at play in Europe, he said.

History suggests that workers often fail to claw back losses from high inflation. In the U.S., periods of high inflation were, in general, periods of lower real-wage growth, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. High inflation in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s led to real income losses for workers, according to the country’s central bank.

But there are reasons to think real wages might recover soon. Wage growth remains around its fastest in at least a decade across a range of advanced economies. It could stay elevated as wage bargaining proceeds.

Absent a deep recession, unemployment could stay low enough to preserve some bargaining power for workers. The labor supply is being constrained by aging populations across advanced economies and increased worker absences due to illness, often Covid-19.

And markets are betting inflation will fall rapidly this year across advanced economies. If so, it could well fall below wage growth, so real wages would rise—along with workers’ share of the economic pie.

Apple and its suppliers aim to build more than 50 million iPhones in India annually within the next two to three years, with additional tens of millions of units planned after that, according to people involved.

If the plans are achieved, India would account for a quarter of global iPhone production and take further share toward the end of the decade. China will remain the largest iPhone producer.

Apple has gradually boosted its reliance on India in recent years despite challenges including rickety infrastructure and restrictive labor rules that often make doing business harder than in China. Among other issues, labor unions retain clout even in business-friendly states and are pushing back on an effort by companies to get permission for 12-hour work days, which Apple suppliers find helpful during crunch periods.

Apple and its suppliers, led by Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology Group, generally believe the initial push into India has gone well and are laying the groundwork for a bigger expansion, say people involved in the supply chain.

Apple is emblematic of a move among companies worried about over dependence on China to move parts of their supply chains elsewhere, most often to Southeast Asia and South Asia. Diplomatic efforts by the U.S. and its allies to block Beijing’s access to advanced technology and strengthen ties with New Delhi have accelerated the trend.

The first phase of a Foxconn plant under construction in the southern state of Karnataka is expected to start operating in April, and the plant aims to make 20 million mobile handsets annually, mainly iPhones, within the next two to three years, said people with direct knowledge of the construction plans.

A further iPhone-producing mega plant is on Foxconn’s drawing board with capacity similar to the one in Karnataka, although the plans are still in a nascent stage, the people said.

Apple has also chosen India as its site for a manufacturing stage for lower-end iPhones to be sold in 2025. In this stage, known as new product introduction, Apple’s teams work with contractors in translating product blueprints and prototypes into a detailed manufacturing plan. Until now, that work was done only in China.

Combined with plans for expanded production at an existing Foxconn plant near Chennai and at another existing plant recently bought by Indian conglomerate Tata, these developments signify that Apple intends to have the capacity to make at least 50 million to 60 million iPhones in India annually within two to three years, said people involved in the planning.

Annual capacity could grow by tens of millions of units after that.

Foxconn indicated its commitment to India by announcing on Nov. 27 that it was investing the equivalent of more than $1.5 billion in the country, money that people familiar with the matter said would include production for Apple. The announcement didn’t mention the iPhone or name specific locations.

Global iPhone shipments last year totalled more than 220 million, according to research firm Counterpoint, a number that has remained steady in recent years. Because almost all iPhones are made in either China or India, China will continue to account for well over half of iPhone output.

Apple has faced challenges in China this year beyond trade tensions with the U.S., including the Chinese government instructing some officials not to use iPhones at work.

“India’s trust factor is very high,” said Ashwini Vaishnaw, India’s information technology minister.

This year, for the first time, India-made iPhones were introduced on the first day of global sales of the latest model, eliminating the lag with China-made phones.

Supply-chain executives say hourly wages are now significantly lower in India than in China, but other costs such as transport remain higher, and labor unions sometimes resist rule changes sought by manufacturers.

In May, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu state, where Foxconn’s flagship Chennai plant is located, said he would withdraw regulations allowing a 12-hour workday, weeks after the state passed an amendment authorising the longer hours. The chief minister, M.K. Stalin, attributed the decision to opposition from labor activists.

Karnataka state has stood by a decision earlier this year to extend the workday to 12 hours, up from a previous limit of nine hours, though companies must seek approval to do so. A state labor official, G. Manjunath, said new rules also allow companies to employ women on overnight shifts without seeking government approval.

After years of battling local-content rules and other red tape, Apple this year opened its first retail stores in India. Abhilash Kumar, an India-based analyst at TechInsights, said the top-of-the-line iPhone 15 Pro Max was selling well in the country, though it costs about $700 more than in the U.S.

Apple is also making progress in India toward building a network of core suppliers, long a strength of Chinese manufacturing. Officials said this week that Japanese battery maker TDK would build a new factory in India’s Haryana state to manufacture battery cells to power Indian-made iPhones. A TDK spokesman declined to comment.

The moves don’t mean Apple and its suppliers are leaving China. Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has traveled to China twice this year, stressing the country’s importance as a production hub and consumer market. He visited Luxshare, a China-based assembler that is taking a bigger role in the China portion of iPhone assembly.

On social media, Apple has assured Chinese consumers that iPhones selling in authorised channels are made in China. At an industry event in Beijing that Chinese premier Li Qiang attended in late November, Apple’s booth stressed the company’s business with Chinese suppliers.

Foxconn Chairman Young Liu said in November that China would continue to account for the largest share of Foxconn’s capital investment next year.

Liu has visited India at least three times in the past year and a half, meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other officials. People involved in the planning said Modi’s home state of Gujarat in the west was one possible site of a future Foxconn plant. Meanwhile, the company has other projects in the works in the southern half of the country for electronic components and a plant likely to focus on making AirPods for Apple.

The plant in Karnataka state is under construction on 300 acres of land near the airport in Bengaluru, a southern city that is considered India’s tech hub. Officials involved in the planning said Foxconn has secured approval to invest nearly $1 billion in the plant and is seeking the go-ahead to put in an additional $600 million or so.

Combined with other projects, Foxconn’s investments in the state are likely to reach around $2.7 billion, they said.

Some iPhones are also made at a plant near Bengaluru that India’s Tata Electronics agreed in October to buy from Taiwan’s Wistron. Tata Group is the first local company to take on manufacturing iPhones.

“Apple has created an additional spoke in its India strategy by roping in the country’s largest business group—Tata—to be a part of its manufacturing system in addition to Foxconn,” said India’s junior information-technology minister, Rajeev Chandrasekhar.

—Shan Li in New Delhi and Selina Cheng in Hong Kong contributed to this article.

Workers’ Pay Globally Hasn’t Kept Up With Inflation

Decline in purchasing power could reverse this year if prices rise more slowly

Supplier Foxconn plans to build more factories and give India a production role once limited mostly to China