Remarkably strong quarterly surge in employment helps boost regular pay growth

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has this morning released the latest set of UK labour market data, mostly covering the three months December 2014 to January 2014.

The remarkably strong quarterly 248,000 rise in employment indicates a surge in the pace of job creation at the end of last year, helping to cut unemployment by a further 76,000 to a rate of 5.6%. People working full-time account for two-thirds of the total rise in employment this quarter, most of whom are employees on permanent contracts. With the number of people in work now above 31 million the working age employment rate has risen to 73.4%, a new record.

The fact that very strong employment growth had only a relatively modest impact on unemployment in the quarter is explained by a large fall of 104,000 in the number of economically inactive people, itself likely to be an indication of improved labour market opportunity.

A further fall in unemployment combined with both a record employment rate and record job vacancies (up 32,000 in the quarter to 743,000) has also given a boost to the rate of growth of regular pay (i.e. average weekly earnings excluding bonuses) which has increased from 1.6% to 1.8%. Regular pay growth is a better indicator of underlying wage pressure than total pay (including bonuses), the rate of which fell from 1.9% to 1.7%.  

Together with zero price inflation, the jobs boom is helping improve real incomes despite the fact that nominal wage pressure remains subdued. However, the rise in employment and real wages continues to mask severe underlying weakness in labour productivity. This will have to improve markedly if the current recovery in living standards is to be sustained into the medium and long-term.