UK unemployment almost 50-year low, but wages hit hard by inflation

LONDON – Britain’s unemployment rate remains close to 50-year lows, but wage values are falling at a record pace with inflation at the highest level in decades, official data showed today.

Unemployment stood at 3.8% in the three months to the end of June, the National Statistics Office (ONS) said in a statement.

This was unchanged compared with the three months to the end of May.

ONS director of economic statistics Darren Morgan said that although the latest data pointed to the number of job vacancies remaining “historically very high, it fell for the first time since the summer of 2020” when the UK briefly exited a Covid-19 lockdown.

He added that excluding bonuses, real pay “is still dropping faster than at any time since comparable records began in 2001”.

It comes with UK inflation at a 40-year high of 9.4% on surging energy and food prices.

The Bank of England is forecasting inflation to peak at just over 13% in Britain this year, pushing its economy into recession.

ONS publishes its latest inflation reading tomorrow. – AFP, August 16, 2022