As long as we are right about labour shortages and big wage rises being limited to a few sectors then underlying pay growth across the economy as a whole should remain relatively steady. In this case, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) will probably continue to signal that rate hikes remain some way off. But if labour shortages start to push up pay growth more widely and inflation expectations start to rise, then the MPC may act to tighten monetary policy in the first half of next year before the economy has properly recovered from the crisis.