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UK wage growth was higher than expected in the three months to February, despite a weaker jobs market in which unemployment rose, vacancies fell and more people chose not to work or to look for work.
The Office for National Statistics said average earnings, including bonuses, were 5.6% higher in the period than a year earlier, the same annual growth rate as in the three months to January. Analysts had expected annual growth to slow to 5.5%.
Excluding bonuses, annual earnings growth fell from 6.1% to 6%, remaining stronger than the 5.8% pace analysts had expected.
The data suggests it may still take some time before the Bank of England’s raters are confident that inflationary pressures in the economy have eased enough to start cutting interest rates from their current 16-year high of 5.25 %.
This is a developing story