- Matthew Whittaker, chief economist from the Resolution Foundation
While the UK unemployment rate remained steady at 5.5%, the lowest level since 2008, British workers' total pay increased more than expected to reach its fastest rate in almost four years in three months through April. Total average weekly earnings in the three months to April, including bonuses, rose by 2.7% compared with the same period a year earlier, accelerating from 2.3% year-on-year growth in the three months to March. Inflation, in contrast, slid below zero in April, declining by 0.1% compared with the same month, before ticking up to 0.1% in May. The report also revealed that the claimant count declined by a seasonally adjusted 6,500 in May, compared with expectations for a drop of 12,300. April's figure was revised to a decline of 7,800 people from a previously estimated decline of 12,600.
Meanwhile, minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee's June meeting record that all nine panel members voted unanimously to keep the BOE's benchmark interest rate at 0.5% this month and to leave the size of the central bank's bond portfolio at 375 billion pounds. The minutes also showed that policy makers expect annual inflation to accelerate "notably" later this year after data earlier in the week showed consumer prices in the UK climbed on the year in May by just 0.1%. Prices recorded their first annual fall in April for more than 50 years.
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