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mpc: 18 As the Committee had previously discussed, the rise in energy prices would require the growth rate of the real consumption wage to be slower than it would otherwise have been if employment levels were to be sustained. This adjustment could come about via higher inflation, lower nominal wage growth, or some combination of the two. Overall, there remained little evidence of any pickup in wage pressures. While the annual growth rate of the headline average earnings index had increased sharply in February, this was likely to prove temporary since it had partly reflected a shift in the timing of annual bonus payments, particularly in the financial services sector. A matched sample of wage settlements that only included the same firms in it for the first quarters of 2005 and 2006 suggested a fall in wage settlements, with weakness being particularly evident in the retail sector. And the Bank's regional Agents had continued to report little sign of pay pressures. The absence of a pickup in wage inflation could reflect a number of factors, including the rise in unemployment; the impact of increased inflows of foreign workers from the new member states of the European Union; and also a response by firms to larger actual and prospective contributions to their in-house pension schemes. Although wage inflation had remained broadly stable, this had not prevented a small rise in the growth rate of the real product wage faced by firms since the start of 2005.