Unemployment in the north west region falls
UNEMPLOYMENT in the north west fell by 8,000 in the three months to June.
During these months 146,000 people were unemployed across the region according to the Office for National Statistics.
Nationally though the number of people in work rose by 125,000 to 32.07 million, with the employment rate climbing by 0.3 per cent to a record 75.1 per cent.
Annual growth in wages was 2.1 per cent for April to June, up from a revised figure of 1.9 per cent for March to May.
Once bonuses are stripped out, pay expanded by 2.1 per cent over the period, rising from 2 per cent.
ONS senior labour market statistician Matt Hughes said: “The employment picture remains strong, with a new record high employment rate and another fall in the unemployment rate.
“Despite the strong jobs picture, however, real earnings continue to decline.”
NatWest chief economist Stephen Boyle commented: “There has never been a time when the UK labour market has performed as well in terms of delivering jobs and taking people out of unemployment.
“We are now beyond what until very recently people had considered “full employment”. Yet in what otherwise looks like a tight job market there is no meaningful wage pressure.
“No wage pressure means that wider, domestically-generated price inflation remains pretty muted. And if that’s the case, combined with yesterday’s fall in inflation, any prospect of a rise in Bank Rate slips further towards and beyond the horizon.
The jobs market remained a bright spot for the economy, with the unemployment rate dropping by 0.2 per cent to 4.4 per cent for the three months to June, its lowest level since 1975.
The number of people out of work dropped by 57,000 on the quarter to 1.48 million - a 12-year low.
Meanwhile, the so-called claimant count fell by 4,200 in July to 807,800.
Matthew Percival, CBI head of employment, said: “Continuing strong employment growth is tainted by falling real wages, reducing household spending power.
“Separate figures confirm that productivity has been falling throughout 2017 – this matters as rising productivity is the only sustainable route to higher wages and better living standards.
“It’s therefore incumbent upon the Government to work with businesses to protect the UK’s flexible labour market, and design an industrial strategy that will drive productivity and wage growth.”
Employment Minister Damian Hinds adds: “These statistics show that record levels of people are in work across the country and earning a wage, which is great news.”