Pay packets are rising at a record rate despite rising unemployment and a marked cooling of the UK’s labour market, the latest official figures shows.
The Office for National Statistics said total earnings in the three months to July 2023 were 8.5% higher than in the same period a year earlier – the highest since modern records began in 2001 other than during the exceptional conditions of the pandemic.
The ONS said the earnings figures were affected by one-off payments to NHS staff and civil servants but that real pay – adjusted for inflation – rose at an annual rate of 1.2%.
Over the same three-month period, unemployment rose by 159,000, the unemployment rate rose by 0.5 percentage points to 4.3%, employment dropped by 207,000 and the number of job vacancies dipped below the 1m level for the first time in two years.
Credit: The Guardian
