Ben Broadbent: Compositional shifts in the labour market Speech by Mr Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor for Monetary Policy of the Bank of England, at the “Understanding the Great Recession: from micro to macro” Conference, Bank of England, London, 23 September 2015. *  *  *  Accompanying charts and table can be found at the end of the speech. I would like to thank Will Abel and Rebecca Burnham for research assistance and I am grateful for helpful comments from other colleagues. The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of England or other members of the Monetary Policy Committee. I want to begin by thanking the organisers for putting together this excellent conference and for asking me to come along. I’m honoured to be in such distinguished company. Up front, I also want to thank Bank economists – especially Matt Corder and Alina Barnett – for their help. If this were a working paper it would have multiple authors. Today’s tagline – “from micro to macro” – is a sobering one for macroeconomists. We’re used to describing the economy in broad, sweeping terms, using numbers on aggregate output, total employment, average wages. Yet, in practice, the modern economy is hugely diverse and, underneath the surface, highly dynamic. New ideas replace old, businesses fail and are formed and, even when the net change in employment is small, and the labour market in aggregate looks stable, the gross flows in the labour market can be huge.
A more accurate description of the red line is average wage growth for people continuously in employment, adjusted for any the impact of changes in average age and experience across the workforce. BIS central bankers’ speeches  13