LONDON - The number of people without a job increased by 111,000 in the three months ending November, while the number of people claiming jobless benefits continued to surge, the Office for National Statistics said in its latest report.
The ONS said that the number of people looking to garner the Jobseeker’s Allowance soared by 909,100 in December. This was 7,200 more than what was recorded in November and is the eleventh consecutive time that it has risen. The report also said that the number of vacancies in this period dipped by 12,700 to 606,500.
The ONS said that the number of people who come under the "economically inactive" bracket has increased to the highest level since the inception of the records in 1971.The total jobless count now stands at 1.53 million, the highest level since 2002.
"The trend in the employment rate may be starting to fall, while the trend in the unemployment rate is increasing," the ONS said in a statement. Analysts were of the opinion that the weak data from the labour market should bring about a rate cut from the Bank of England. "We have argued that the labour market will hold the key to the future direction of monetary policy.
This set of data supports the view that the next move is down and, if the fall in employment continues, that move could come sooner rather than later," observed John Butler of HSBC. Earnings growth in the public sector was at 4.1 percent as compared to the 3.3 percent in the private sector.
"This confirms that late in 2005 there was still no evidence that pay was starting to be pushed up by recently higher consumer price inflation and increasing energy bills," said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at Global Insight.
Posted
on : Wed, 18 Jan 2006 18:40 GMT | General News
By : Salim Patel
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