Staff Writer
According to official figures released on Tuesday, the UK’s unemployment rate increased once again to 4% in the three months ending in May as the country’s economy battles stubbornly high inflation.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released a statement stating that the jobless rate jumped from 3.8 percent in the three months leading up to the end of April.
For the first time since the start of 2022, the rate was back at 4%. The consensus among analysts had been for the jobless rate to stay at 3.8 percent.
Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s finance minister, claimed that despite the increase, the country’s “jobs market is strong and unemployment is low by historical standards.”
The ONS also stated that the increase in wages without bonuses reached record heights.
But, as Darren Morgan, head of economic statistics at the ONS, pointed out, “because to rising inflation, the real worth of weekly earnings are still declining, although now at its slowest rate since the end of 2021.
Hunt claimed there could “be no sustainable growth without eliminating the inflation that discourages investment and erodes consumer confidence” in a keynote address late on Monday.
Although it has decreased recently, UK annual inflation is still very near to 9%.
This is significantly higher than the Bank of England’s two-percent target, leading to many interest rate increases by the regulator.
According to Matthew Ryan, head of market strategy at Ebury, “UK inflation is already running far hotter than policymakers had hoped, and price pressures will struggle to abate any time soon so long as earnings continue to grow at the current scorching pace.”
According to the ONS, the average regular salary, excluding bonuses, increased by 7.3% in the three months leading up to May compared to the same time last year.
Despite calls for pay restraint from BoE governor Andrew Bailey and Hunt, thousands of public and private sector workers continue to go on strike in support of salary increases that maintain pace with inflation.
