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(Alliance News) - Ahead of this week's Bank of England decision, the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday said the UK labour market continued to recover at the start of 2022.
The unemployment rate in the three months to January was 3.9%, down from 4.1% in the three months to December and returning to pre-pandemic levels.
The ONS said the number of payrolled employees in February stood at a record 29.7 million. Meanwhile, job vacancies rose to a new record of 1.3 million.
Growth in average total pay - which includes bonuses - was 4.8% and growth in regular pay, stripping out bonus payments, was 3.8%. But when adjusted for inflation, growth in total pay was 0.1% and regular pay fell on the year by 1.0%.
Data last month showed the UK's annual inflation figure raced to just shy of a 30-year high in January at 5.5%.
The BoE meets this week, unveiling its latest interest rate decision on Thursday.
‘The further tightening in the labour market in January will only encourage the Bank of England to raise interest rates on Thursday, probably from 0.50% to 0.75%, despite the coming extra hit to households' real incomes from the war in Ukraine,’ commented Capital Economics.
By Lucy Heming; lucyheming@alliancenews.com
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