The rate hit 5.1% in the three months to November, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).<\/p>\n
The reading means that unemployment is now at its lowest level since the three-month period to October 2005.<\/p>\n
But wage growth was slower-than-expected, increasing at its slowest rate since February.<\/p>\n
Average weekly earnings, including bonuses, were up 2%, which is below the 2.4% rise of the previous three months, and lower than the 2.1% forecast in a Reuters survey.<\/p>\n
Excluding bonuses, average weekly earnings growth slowed to 1.9% in the three months, the ONS said.<\/p>\n
The number of people out of work fell by 99,000 to 1.68 million in the three month period, putting the employment rate at 74% – the highest since comparable records began in 1971.<\/p>\n
The figures come a day after Bank of England governor Mark Carney ruled out an early rise in interest rates because of the turmoil in the global economy and weaker UK growth.<\/p>\n
A sustained improvement in wage growth was one of the factors he said would help the Bank to gauge when to raise rates.<\/p>\n
He has previously said he would like to see earnings growth at above 3% a year before rates are increased.<\/p>\n
Capital Economics economist Ruth Miller said the figures confirmed an interest rate hike “is still some way off”.<\/p>\n
“There still seems very little inflationary pressure coming from the labour market,” she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The rate hit 5.1% in the three months to November, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The reading means that unemployment is now at its lowest level since the three-month period to October 2005. But wage growth was slower-than-expected, increasing at its slowest rate since February. Average weekly earnings, including bonuses, were up 2%, which is below the 2.4% rise of the previous three months, and lower than the 2.1% forecast in a Reuters survey. Excluding bonuses, average weekly earnings growth slowed to 1.9% in the three months,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1957,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions\/1957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}