{"id":337385,"date":"2026-03-19T12:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/337385\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T12:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:18:10","slug":"unemployment-stuck-at-five-year-high-as-youth-rate-climbs-money-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/337385\/","title":{"rendered":"Unemployment stuck at five year high as youth rate climbs | Money News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>UK unemployment has remained at its highest rate in five years, new official figures show.<\/p>\n<p>The jobless rate was 5.2% in the three months to January, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.<\/p>\n<p>Before <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/unemployment-hits-highest-rate-in-nearly-5-years-13508415\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">last month<\/a>, such a high hadn&#8217;t been seen since the three months to January 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The increases in the last three months were &#8220;largely&#8221; due to youth joblessness, the statistics body said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/money-live-tips-personal-finance-consumer-sky-news-latest-13040934\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Money blog: New speed cameras trialled &#8211; here&#8217;s where they&#8217;re located<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The unemployment rate among 18 to 24-year-olds rose to 14.5% while the number of people in this age group out of work and not in full-time education increased to the highest rate since 2014, 19.2%, according to analysis of payroll figures from the Resolution Foundation thinktank.<\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/skynews-pat-mcfadden_7194080.jpg\"  class=\"ui-video-player-poster-image\" alt=\"\" data-testid=\"video-player-poster-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>    Share<\/p>\n<p>\n                Will Labour sort youth unemployment?\n            <\/p>\n<p>While unemployment rose across the board, the impacts were not felt evenly: male unemployment is 5.5%, while female unemployment is 4.8%.<\/p>\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n<p>Employers have faced higher costs for employing staff due to the rise in employers&#8217; national insurance contributions in April.<\/p>\n<p>Higher minimum wages for younger workers had contributed to the growth in unemployment among that cohort, Catherine Mann, a senior Bank of England economist and interest rate setter, said last month.<\/p>\n<p>Lower pay rises<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, wage growth was at its lowest in more than five years, the ONS said.<\/p>\n<p>It means pay is still rising faster than inflation, but more slowly than before, in both the private and public sectors.<\/p>\n<p>Average pay, including bonuses, rose 3.8%, while average weekly earnings, which include bonuses, increased 3.9%.<\/p>\n<p>Just a month earlier both measures of pay increases had been 4.2%.<\/p>\n<p>Green shoots?<\/p>\n<p>There are some signs of a rebound in the jobs market, though, as the number of staff on payrolls rose slightly in January.<\/p>\n<p>The number of job vacancies remained stable, according to the ONS.<\/p>\n<p>Smaller businesses were more reluctant to hire staff and reduced the number of vacancies they posted. But that was made up by bigger firms looking for more staff.<\/p>\n<p>     <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/download-app\" target=\"blank\" data-tracking-label=\"ui-app-promo-download-link\" class=\"ui-app-promo sdc-article-widget\" data-type=\"\" data-component-name=\"ui-app-promo\" data-testid=\"app-promo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Redundancy numbers fell in the last three months, though they are higher compared to a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>The proportion of people reporting redundancy was 4.5 per 1,000 employees, from November 2025 to January 2026.<\/p>\n<p>None of the latest figures reflect the impact of the Iran war, which, due to the oil and gas price rises, is expected to increase inflation.<\/p>\n<p>Impact of war<\/p>\n<p>Higher prices can mean people spend less, putting businesses under pressure and potentially leading to them hiring fewer staff and letting go of workers.<\/p>\n<p>As the conflict continues the green shoots could evaporate leading to unemployment climbing even higher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK unemployment has remained at its highest rate in five years, new official figures show. The jobless rate&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-337385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}