Ahead of the Bank of England’s interest rate decision at midday,unemployment has fallen to 4.9% in the three months to April as wage growth beats forecasts
Pay growth excluding bonuses held steady at 3.4 per cent over the same period, surpassing forecasts of 3.2 per cent
Liz McKeown, the ONS’s director of economic statistics, said the further drop in job vacancies suggested that “firms are becoming more cautious about taking on new staff”.
The Bank of England is due to announce its latest interest rate decision, with policymakers widely expected to leave borrowing costs unchanged at 3.75 per cent.
Ben Harrison, Director of the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, a leading think tank for improving working lives in the UK, comments on the latest ONS labour market statistics:
“Today’s figures indicate that the labour market remains in a precarious position and requires the Government to double down its efforts to grow the economy.
“While unemployment may have fallen slightly from last month to 4.9%, 124,000 more people are out of work relative to last year. More than two thirds of this increase has been driven by young people aged 18–24, while youth unemployment remains well above the level seen for much of this century. At the same time, opportunities to gain a foothold in the labour market have declined.
Recent Work Foundation analysis of Adzuna data found that the number of ‘starter’ jobs available to first-time entrants has fallen by 49% over the last decade.”
“And while overall vacancies have declined to their lowest level since 2021 at 707,000. This is particularly bad news for young jobseekers who are facing an increasingly sparse and challenging jobs market. While total vacancies have fallen in recent years, the decline in starter jobs has been 1.6 times faster than for other jobs in the last 12 months.
“This data underlines that whoever is Prime Minister in the months ahead, Government should prioritise action to boost secure jobs and support those out of work. For young people, we need to see a bolder, more localised approach to the Jobs Guarantee focussed on providing access to good quality, secure employment opportunities. And more broadly, Government must avoid an approach that pits welfare support for those out of work as being in opposition to providing better pathways to sustainable employment.”
