Real wages fall as costs of living pressure in the UK; Low unemployment rate – Business Live | Business

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Good morning, and welcome to our renewed coverage of the global economy, financial markets, the eurozone, and business.

UK unemployment is down again, as employers continue to add workers to their payrolls…but now wages are slowing in inflation again.

The unemployment rate fell to 4.1% in the September-November quarter, the Office for National Statistics reported. That’s down from 4.2% a month ago.

Payrolls continue to swell, too — the Office for National Statistics estimates that employers added an additional 184,000 employees in December, raising salaries to 409,000, or 1.4%, above pre-pandemic levels.

All regions are now above pre-coronavirus levels, with Scotland registering the largest increase in the month.

UK salary levels Photo: ONS

Job vacancies hit a record high, again – with 1,247,000 vacancies in October and December, as employers continue to struggle to fill positions.

That’s 462 thousand more than before the pandemic, with most industries showing record numbers of vacancies, and the ratio of job vacancies to every 100 at a record 4.1. However, the rate of growth in job vacancies has slowed, the Office for National Statistics warns.

Sean Farrington (@seanfarrington)

Don’t stop job vacancies rising right now – here’s the graph covering the past 15 years. pic.twitter.com/A5jTqxPxXF

January 18 2022

The rate of redundancy fell to a record low after the end of the coronavirus job retention scheme, indicating that the end of the furlough scheme did not have a significant impact on the labor market.

But the economic inactivity rate rose 0.2 percentage point to 21.3%, which indicates that more people are dropping out of the labor market — either because they are studying, retiring early or sick.

Sam Avanzo Wendet (Samanthawendit)

ONS stats today (September-November q/q): UK employment rate up to 75.5%; Unemployment rate drops to 4.1%; Economic inactivity continues its alarming rise – up 0.2 percentage point to 21.3% https://t.co/oxWvwR4bJS

January 18 2022

And in terms of wages, the real average weekly income in November 2021 fell for the first time since July 2020 (we’ll talk about that in a moment).

As the day comes

The Bank of Japan raised its growth and inflation forecasts overnight, and announced increased prospects for a commodity-driven price hike recently.

Shane Oliver (@ShaneOliverAMP)

#BoJ left monetary policy on hold as was widely expected. The concept of the concept of inflation is still around zero. It raised growth forecasts (to 3.8%) and inflation expectations (to 1.1%) for the 2022 fiscal year.

January 18 2022

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio addresses the virtual Davos agenda of the World Economic Forum today, as will Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

On the economic front, we get lagging German economic sentiment data, and a factory health check in the New York state area.

European stock markets could open lower, with bond yields rising as investors anticipate several US interest rate hikes this year.

ACEMAXX Analytics (@acemaxx)

#Eurodollar future #Spread indicates at least 4 times price hike in 2022 than the Fed – (short-term yields climb faster than those in notes with longer dates, #UST yield curve flattens), BloombergQuint chart https:/ / t. pic.twitter.com/wocnr0BceP

Jan 18 2022 Agenda 8am GMT: EU Finance Ministers hold EcoFin meeting at 10am GMT: ZEW survey of German economic sentiment 10am GMT: Special speech from Naftali Bennett, Prime Minister of Israel, on Davos Agenda 11 AM GMT: Special speech by Kishida Fumio, Prime Minister of Japan, on the Davos Agenda 1.30 PM GMT: Empire State Manufacturing Index for New York
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