United Kingdom: Labor market remains solid midway through Q4
According to the ONS, vacancy numbers declined in the three months to November for the 17th consecutive period, while employment decreased by 13,000 month on month in November.
More positively, wage growth in the three months to October outstripped inflation, supporting consumers’ purchasing power. Official unemployment figures were not published together with the aforementioned labor market data due to quality concerns, though experimental data released by the statistics office put the unemployment rate at 4.2% in the three months to October, in line with the figure in the three months to September but up from the low-point of 3.5% reached in mid-2022.
Overall, these figures show that the labor market is still in solid shape, despite having lost dynamism over the last 12 months. Our Consensus is for a slight slackening of the labor market in the coming quarters as the effect of past rate hikes is increasingly felt.