14 February 2023
If you are covering the latest UK labour market statistics, please see the following comments from Richard Carter, head of fixed interest research at Quilter Cheviot:
“The latest statistics from the ONS show the UK labour market continues to be surprisingly buoyant despite the ongoing economic pressures, and the unemployment rate stayed relatively flat at 3.7% for another month.
“There are some signs the labour market is cooling as demand for workers tails off, even if this is not feeding through to unemployment. Vacancies have fallen for the eighth consecutive month to 1.13m for the three months to the end of January. The fall of 76,000 over the past three months looks to be mainly driven by the private sector, but with public sector vacancies also now having stopped rising.
“The Bank of England will not be best pleased to see that regular wage growth experienced a further uptick to 6.7% in October to December 2022, compared to 6.4% seen in September to November, as this continued growth reinforces the inflationary pressures in the economy. However, households will still be feeling the pinch as total pay fell by 3.1% over the year in real terms. What’s more, despite the ongoing strike action, the gap between private sector and public sector wage growth remains significant, with private sector pay up 7.3% while public sector is up by just 4.2%.”
