Xinhua, London :
British wage growth lagged inflation in April as unemployment remained at its lowest level in 42 years, official figures released on Wednesday showed.
Wage figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed that wage growth, excluding bonuses, in April slipped to 1.2 percent, the lowest monthly figure in two and a half years.
Experts consider that the monthly wage growth figures are liable to volatility, and the three-monthly figures fell to a growth rate of 1.7 percent in the three months to the end of April, the lowest rate of growth since February, 2016, and just 0.1 percentage point lower than that in the three months to March. The growth rate of pay has now reached its lowest level since early 2014. “The wage figures are astonishingly weak and imply that real wages were down 1.5 percent year-over-year in April, the sharpest fall for three years,” said Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, a London-based economics analysis firm.
British wage growth lagged inflation in April as unemployment remained at its lowest level in 42 years, official figures released on Wednesday showed.
Wage figures released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed that wage growth, excluding bonuses, in April slipped to 1.2 percent, the lowest monthly figure in two and a half years.
Experts consider that the monthly wage growth figures are liable to volatility, and the three-monthly figures fell to a growth rate of 1.7 percent in the three months to the end of April, the lowest rate of growth since February, 2016, and just 0.1 percentage point lower than that in the three months to March. The growth rate of pay has now reached its lowest level since early 2014. “The wage figures are astonishingly weak and imply that real wages were down 1.5 percent year-over-year in April, the sharpest fall for three years,” said Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, a London-based economics analysis firm.
