Wage growth at 2.5yr high

HARD WORK TUC’s O’Grady GROWTH in workers’ wages has reached a two-and-a-half year high, official figures show.

Average pay, including bonuses, grew by 2.8% in the three months to January from the previous year, the highest since September 2015.

Basic pay rose by 2.6%, the Office for National Statistics found. Yet wages are still rising slower than living costs. TUC chief Frances O’Grady warned: “Britain’s living standards crisis is far from over.”

ONS also said the number of people in work grew by 168,000 to 32.2 million, the most since records began in 1971. But unemployment also rose, by 24,000 to 1.45 million.