British unemployment rose last month at its fastest rate since the 1992 recession while pay growth in January was much softer than expected, official data showed today.
The number of Britons out of work and claiming benefits rose by 14,600, the biggest jump since December 1992 when Britain was still emerging from recession, the Office for National Statistics said.
Over 100,000 jobs have been lost in the last year though that still left the unemployment rate at just 2.9%.
Average earnings in the three months to January were 3.5% higher than a year earlier, unchanged from a downwardly revised headline figure for December and much weaker than the 3.9% rate predicted by analysts. In January alone, earnings were 3% higher than a year earlier, the weakest increase since April 2003.
The ONS said that the slow earnings growth was mainly the result of lower bonuses in the financial sector where many firms did not repeat January 2005 bonuses this year but statisticians were not clear whether this was just a timing effect.
The government's preferred survey-based measure of joblessness showed a rise of 37,000 in the three months to January for a rate of 5% and the ONS said the increase was mostly among women.
