UK’s employment rate falls as wage growth slows
16/12/2015
The UK’s unemployment rate has fallen to the lowest level in nearly 10 years to 5.2% in the three months leading to October.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the figures which showed the lowest jobless rate since the three months leading to January 2006. 110,000 people became employed in the three months to October, leading to the number of unemployed people falling to 1.71 million.
Between August and October 31.3 million people were in work, which is over half a million more than a year earlier. The figures also show that EU citizens working in the UK increased by 324,000 to 2.02 million.
Although unemployment has fallen, the pay of workers in the UK has grown at its slowest rate since early 2015. The regular earnings of workers rose by just 2.0% in the three months to October. In the month of October alone, regular wages rose by 1.7%, the slowest increase since January.
The mixed economic growth combined with a weaker outlook for inflation is the reason why the Bank of England (BoE) chose to keep the UK’s base interest rates at their record low. BoE Governor Mark Carney has said he would like to see earnings growth moving above 3% a year before he would support a rate hike.
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