The number of people looking for work has risen as job vacancies fall suggesting that the uncertain economic outlook is hitting employment.
About 220,000 more people were seeking work between December and February than in the three months before.
Unemployment rose slightly and job vacancies fell for the ninth time in a row, official figures suggest.
However, the figures also showed a rise in the employment rate as more people returned to the jobs market.
The latest earnings figures also showed that pay continued to lag rising prices.
Annual growth in regular pay, which excludes bonuses, was 6.6% between December and February, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
However, when taking into account the rate of price increases - which is running at its highest for nearly 40 years - regular pay fell by 2.3%.
The ONS figures showed that the employment rate edged up to 75.8% in the three months to February. In the same period, the unemployment rate rose to 3.8%, up from 3.7% in the previous three months.
Job vacancies fell for the ninth time in a row with companies blaming economic pressures for holding back on hiring new staff.
From January to the end of March, the number of vacancies fell by 47,000 from the previous quarter to 1,105,000, although the ONS noted vacancy numbers remained at "very high levels".
Michael Stull, the managing director of employment agency ManpowerGroup, told the BBC's Today programme: "We are starting to see a pullback in demand from employers. However, we're still in a strong position."
"We're seeing more people coming back into the workforce," he added, noting that more over-50s and younger people were returning to the jobs market.
Paul FitzGerald, managing director of Coast & Country Hotels, a chain of 30 hotels across the UK, said recruitment is still a huge challenge, particularly in the hospitality sector.
"The situation is getting a little better, we're seeing some green shoots of improvement, but it's still chronic", he said, adding that vacancies were running at 11% in the business.
"The biggest problem area is chefs. They are in short supply and that's our number one priority," he said.
Reacting to the latest figures, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: "While unemployment remains close to historic lows, rising prices continue to eat into pay cheques which is why halving inflation this year is one of our top economic priorities."
However, shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves said the government was holding the UK back. "Their lack of ambition for Britain is leaving real wages down, families worse off, hundreds of thousands fewer people in work and our economy lagging".
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney said: "The Conservative party's gross mismanagement of the British economy has led to inflation rising and growth plummeting."
Despite a slowing economy, there is still a high demand for workers, to the disadvantage of employers and the advantage of employees in the private sector, where wages have grown by 6.9%
In the public sector, which is still going through a recruitment crisis, they're up by 5.3%.
But in real terms, taking account of double-digit rises in the cost of living, it's still the sharpest fall in worker's spending power since the depth of the global financial crisis in early 2009.
And rising wages remain one of the biggest concerns for interest-rate setters on the Bank of England's monetary policy committee.
They fear that what began as global inflationary pressures due to the bounce-back from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine might become entrenched in the UK through higher expectations of inflation - and therefore higher pay rises.
The higher-than-expected rise in wages may make those on the committee who want a further rise in interest rates bolder when the committee next meets in a few weeks time.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiKmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJiYy5jb20vbmV3cy9idXNpbmVzcy02NTMwMTc0MtIBLmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmJiYy5jb20vbmV3cy9idXNpbmVzcy02NTMwMTc0Mi5hbXA?oc=5
2023-04-18 07:14:36Z
1946725010
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar