UK unemployment falls to 6%
For years there has been a strange correlation between low wages and low unemployment in rural areas. In my view it has been because people are prepared to trade off living in a rural community (with its corresponding lack of employment opportunities) for a higher quality of life. After all money isn’t everything. It seems in terms of this story that necessity is now driving ever more people into a low wage, high employment model. Not sure this is a good thing myself but interesting nonetheless to reflect on. Makes me also increasingly interested in the scale of the national “informal” economy. This article tells us:
UK unemployment has fallen to its lowest level since 2008, when the fall of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers brought the global economy to the brink of collapse.
In a pre-election boost to the UK government, the number of unemployed people fell to 1.97 million between June and August after the largest annual fall since records began in 1972.
It was the first time below the 2 million mark since the three months between September and November 2008, according to the Office for National Statistics.
David Cameron said: “The biggest-ever fall in unemployment in history, taking it below 2 million, is great news. Our plan is working, but there’s still much more to do.”
The number of unemployed people was 538,000 lower on an annual basis.
The jobless rate in Britain fell by more than City economists had been expecting, to 6% in the three months to August, from 6.2% in the quarter to July. The forecasts had been 6.1%. The last time the unemployment rate was lower than 6% was in August 2008, when it was 5.9%.
Pay increased by 0.7% over the three months, compared with a year earlier, prolonging the fall in real pay as wage growth continued to lag inflation. It was, however, a slight improvement on the 0.6% pay growth between May and July.