LONDON: The UK’s labour market figures for April are just out, showing a solid jobs market with increasingly decent wage growth
The unemployment rate stayed at 5.5%, with no change from March. Analysts had expected a small drop in unemployment numbers, but not one large enough to change the overall rate.
Most of the good news came from average weekly earnings, the main measure of wage growth, which rose by 2.7%, well above the 2.1% analysts expected.
In the private sector, wages are accelerating at an even faster pace, rising 3.3%.
With inflation -0.1% in April, the lowest in half a century, real wage growth is at its strongest level since 2011. Taking inflation into account, it’s at its highest since 2007.
Most official and private forecasts of wage growth over recent years have been ludicrously optimistic in hindsight, but there are signs of some modest pressures building.
