UK Wage Growth Still High Despite Unemployment Rise

UK wage growth remained strong even as the UK unemployment rate rose to its highest in almost a year, Dearbail Jordan reported for BBC News.

Pay rises in the UK, excluding bonuses, remained at 6%.

The jobless rate increased to 4.3% between January and March, the highest since May to July last year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. The number of vacancies also slowed, meaning more unemployed people are competing for the same jobs.

But pay rises, excluding bonuses, remained at 6%. It had been expected to slow to 5.9% between January and March.

Taking inflation—which measures the pace of price rises—into account, wages rose by 2.4%. Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said that "real pay growth remains at its highest level in well over two years."

But she also said there were other "tentative signs" that the British jobs market is "cooling." Jobs on offer in the UK dropped by 26,000 to 898,000 vacancies between February and April.

The total remains higher than pre-pandemic levels but Ms. McKeown said: "With unemployment also increasing, the number of unemployed people per vacancy has continued to rise, approaching levels seen before the onset of COVID-19."