LONDON: Britain's unemployment rate held steady at 7.8 per cent in June but a sharp fall in jobless benefit claims in July pointed to a strengthening labour market.
The health of Britain's job market is under close scrutiny after the Bank of England indicated last week that it did not plan to raise interest rates until unemployment fell to 7 per cent, as long as inflation expectations and financial stability were not jeopardised.
The central bank does not envisage unemployment breaching this threshold until 2016, but the strength of recent economic data has encouraged investors to bet on a rate hike a year earlier.
The Office for National Statistics said the number of people claiming jobless benefit fell by 29,200 last month - almost twice the drop analysts had forecast.
There was also a favourable revision to the previous month which took the drop in June to 29,400, the largest monthly drop on this measure since May 2010.
The claimant count has now fallen for nine consecutive months, taking the rate to its lowest in more than four years.
The number of people without a job on a wider international measure showed a much smaller improvement, leaving the rate unchanged at 7.8 per cent.
It is this wider measure that the Bank of England will focus on in its monetary policy deliberations. There were some signs that pay is picking up but it remained well below inflation.
Average weekly earnings growth accelerated to 2.1 per cent in the three months through June compared with a year earlier, the fastest growth since late 2011.
indiatimes.com
The health of Britain's job market is under close scrutiny after the Bank of England indicated last week that it did not plan to raise interest rates until unemployment fell to 7 per cent, as long as inflation expectations and financial stability were not jeopardised.
The central bank does not envisage unemployment breaching this threshold until 2016, but the strength of recent economic data has encouraged investors to bet on a rate hike a year earlier.
The Office for National Statistics said the number of people claiming jobless benefit fell by 29,200 last month - almost twice the drop analysts had forecast.
There was also a favourable revision to the previous month which took the drop in June to 29,400, the largest monthly drop on this measure since May 2010.
The claimant count has now fallen for nine consecutive months, taking the rate to its lowest in more than four years.
The number of people without a job on a wider international measure showed a much smaller improvement, leaving the rate unchanged at 7.8 per cent.
It is this wider measure that the Bank of England will focus on in its monetary policy deliberations. There were some signs that pay is picking up but it remained well below inflation.
Average weekly earnings growth accelerated to 2.1 per cent in the three months through June compared with a year earlier, the fastest growth since late 2011.
indiatimes.com
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