The UK unemployment rate unexpectedly rose in the three months to April for the first time in a year, while vacancies remained at record levels and pay fell.
According to data released on Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics, the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.8% from 3.7% in the three months to March and versus expectations for a decline to 3.6%. Still, it remained close to 50-year lows.
The number of people on payrolls rose by 90,000 in May to a fresh record high of 29.6m and the number of job vacancies in March to May hit a new record high of 1.3m.
The figures also showed that regular pay excluding bonuses rose by 4.2% in the three months to April. However, real wages adjusted for inflation running at around 9% fell 2.2% on the year – the biggest decline since 2011.
Sam Beckett, ONS head of economic statistics, said: “Today’s figures continue to show a mixed picture for the labour market.
“While the number of people in employment is up again in the three months to April, the figure remains below pre-pandemic levels.
“Moreover, although the number of people neither in work nor looking for a job has fallen slightly in the latest period, that remains well up on where it was before Covid-19 struck.
“At the same time, unemployment is close to a 50-year low point and there was a record low number of redundancies.
“Job vacancies are still slowly rising, too. At a new record level of 1.3 million, this is over half a million more than before the onset of the pandemic.
“The high level of bonuses continues to cushion the effects of rising prices on total earnings for some workers, but if you exclude bonuses, pay in real terms is falling at its fastest rate in over a decade.”
