- By Noor Nanji & Faisal Islam
- BBC News
Image source, Getty Images
Wage growth has caught up with rising prices for the first time in nearly two years, even as unemployment goes up.
Regular pay, excluding bonuses, rose by 7.8% in May to July compared with a year earlier – matching the pace of inflation over the same period.
Not everyone’s pay will be rising by that amount. The figure is an average across the economy.
There are also signs the jobs market is beginning to weaken, with fewer job vacancies and rising unemployment.
Overall, the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) present a mixed picture with a lot of moving parts.
Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said earnings continued to increase at record rates, while inflation – the measure of how fast prices of goods and services are rising – has come down from its highs.
“This means people’s real pay is no longer falling,” he said.
However, the headline unemployment rate in the May-to-July period was up to 4.3% for the first time in nearly…
