The UK Office for National Statistics has just released the latest official jobs report, mostly covering the three months June to August 2016
There has been a small quarterly rise of 10,000 in the headline level of unemployment. This is disappointing news but should not be viewed as a ‘canary
in the coalmine’ for any future adverse effect of the Brexit vote. Brexit may
yet lead to a weaker jobs market but these latest figures are generally still
very strong.
The number of people in work increased by 106,000 in the quarter
while vacancies remained fairly steady. Unemployment only increased because of
a 116,000 quarterly increase in the supply of labour; the unemployment rate in
fact remained unchanged at 4.9%.
On the downside there has been a slight
increase of 15,000 in the level of redundancies, but this will include continued public sector
downsizing as well as any early confidence effect of the Brexit vote. Meanwhile
the rate of growth in average weekly earnings excluding bonuses ticked up a bit
to 2.3%, another positive sign albeit the faster pace of consumer price inflation is
now dampening growth in real pay.
