{"id":22077,"date":"2025-04-15T13:23:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T13:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/22077\/"},"modified":"2025-04-15T13:23:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T13:23:11","slug":"uk-jobs-data-sends-conflicting-messages-to-bank-of-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/22077\/","title":{"rendered":"UK jobs data sends conflicting messages to Bank of England"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s labour market report for the UK \u2013 released by the Office for
\nNational Statistics (ONS) \u2013 has the Bank of England (BoE) caught between a rock
\nand a hard place. Wage pressures remain elevated and job figures appear to be
\nstarting to feel the impact of US President Donald Trump\u2019s
\ntariff<\/a> plans, as well as the UK government\u2019s economic policies. <\/p>\n

According to the ONS report, the unemployment rate held steady at 4.4% in
\nthe three months to February, in line with market expectations. This is the
\nfourth consecutive month that the rate has remained at this level, after
\nrecording a rise in October 2024. <\/p>\n

Job vacancies in March fell to pre-pandemic levels for the first time in the
\nlast four years. Unemployment figures are closely monitored by the BoE\u2019s
\npolicymakers as they reflect the state of the country\u2019s economy. <\/p>\n

Economists noted that UK businesses let go of 78,467 workers in March just
\nahead of the government\u2019s latest budget measures taking effect this month. One
\nof the measures closely associated with the jobs market is the increase of
\nNational Insurance Contributions (NIC) for employers, which is expected to push
\nbusinesses\u2019 salary costs higher. <\/p>\n

ONS data also revealed average earnings including bonuses increased by 5.6%,
\nmatching January\u2019s revised figure, but was slightly less than the 5.7% expected
\nby market analysts. Average earnings<\/a>
\ngrowth excluding bonuses landed at 5.9%, 0.1% higher compared to January\u2019s
\nrevised reading, but again below economists\u2019 forecasts (6.0%). It should be
\nnoted that both figures outpaced the UK\u2019s Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation
\nrate which stood at 2.8% in February. <\/p>\n

Sterling strengthens against US Dollar<\/p>\n

The British pound (GBP) strengthened against the US dollar (USD<\/a>) and the euro (EUR<\/a>), trading at US$1.31
\nand \u20ac1.16, respectively. Sterling is on track to print a sixth consecutive day
\nin the green against the US dollar, recording its longest winning streak in the
\nlast nine months. <\/p>\n

The GBP\/USD<\/a> is poised for
\nfurther outperformance. Up 5.5% this year so far, price
\naction<\/a> on the monthly timeframe exhibits space to continue pressing north
\nuntil highs of US$1.3434 \u2013 located just beneath resistance coming in at
\nUS$1.3483. Additional buying beyond said resistances shines the technical
\nspotlight on another layer of resistance from US$1.4263. Meanwhile, on the
\ndaily timeframe, a breach of resistance around the US$1.3112 neighbourhood,
\nserves as another bullish indicator towards at least US$1.3268.<\/p>\n

UK March CPI report in focus<\/p>\n

Some economists suggest that the BoE\u2019s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) could
\nchange its interest rate strategy, accelerating the rate cut pace this year to
\nsupport the UK\u2019s struggling economy, which may feel the additional pressure
\nfrom Trump\u2019s tariffs. Nevertheless, wage pressure and the danger of CPI<\/a>
\ninflation rising sharply could make the MPC\u2019s members rethink their next
\nsteps. <\/p>\n

Tomorrow, the ONS will publish the CPI inflation for March, with market<\/a> analysts expecting a slight
\ndrop to 2.7% on a yearly basis, down from 2.8%. <\/p>\n

Charts created using TradingView<\/p>\n

Written by the FP Markets Research Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s labour market report for the UK \u2013 released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) \u2013 has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[6724,748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-22077","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-boe","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}