Britain’s jobless rate hit a 48-year low in the first three months of 2022 and employers paid bigger bonuses to keep or attract staff, according to data that added to bets by investors on further Bank of England interest rate hikes.
Core earnings for most workers fell by the greatest amount since 2013 when adjusted for surging inflation, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.
But total pay including bonuses was up 7.0% on a year earlier, far above economists’ average forecast of 5.4%, according to Reuters.
Sterling climbed by 1.1% against the U.S. dollar and rose by 0.6% against the euro. Investors priced in a 30% chance that the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee will resort to raising interest rates by half a percentage point in June.
The jobless rate dropped to 3.7% from 3.8% – below forecasts in a Reuters poll for it to hold steady – and the number of people out of work was less than job vacancies on offer for the first time on record.
SOURCE: JORDAN NEWS AGENCY