{"id":199126,"date":"2025-10-14T09:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/199126\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T09:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T09:57:10","slug":"uk-unemployment-hits-four-year-high-new-data-reveals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/199126\/","title":{"rendered":"UK unemployment hits four-year high, new data reveals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Commuters walk across London Bridge in London\" class=\"content-image\" data-image-catalogue-id=\"687135\" width=\"660\" height=\"370\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/687135\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>    Commuters walk across London Bridge in London.<\/p>\n<p>        Picture: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/license\/692467204\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\nGetty<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"standfirst\">Unemployment is up and earnings are falling, new data from the Office for National Statistics has revealed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The rate of UK unemployment rose to 4.8% in the three months to August, up from 4.7% in the three months to July.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Meanwhile, UK average regular earnings growth fell to 4.7% in the three months to August.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">This puts the unemployment rate at a four-year high as the economy continues to falter under <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lbc.co.uk\/politics\/labour\/keir-starmer\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Sir Keir Starmer<\/a>&#8216;s Labour government. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">ONS director of economic statistics Liz McKeown said: \u201cAfter a long period of weak hiring activity, there are signs that the falls we have seen in both payroll numbers and vacancies are now levelling off.<\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"A view of the Bank of England in the city of London this morning.\" class=\"content-image\" data-image-catalogue-id=\"732905\" width=\"660\" height=\"370\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/732905\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>    A view of the Bank of England in the city of London this morning.<\/p>\n<p>        Picture: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alamy.com\/stock-photo-london-uk-683068762.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\nAlamy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">\u201cWe see different patterns across the age ranges with record numbers of over-65s in work, while the increase in unemployment was driven mostly by younger people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The ONS has warned these figures should be treated with caution as it continues to overhaul its labour market survey.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">It added there were signs of the jobs market downturn \u201clevelling off\u201d, with a rise in UK workers on payrolls \u2013 up 10,000 between July and August, following a minor increase the previous month, though early estimates signalled a 10,000 drop during September to 30.3 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">It comes after retail sales growth slowed in September as rising inflation and a potentially taxing Budget weighed on households ahead of Christmas, figures suggest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Total UK retail sales increased by 2.3% year on year in September, against growth of 2% in September 2024 and above the 12-month average growth of 2.1%, according to British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KPMG data.<\/p>\n<p>        <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" alt=\"Rachel Reeves, Chancellor Of The Exchequer,\" class=\"content-image\" data-image-catalogue-id=\"717577\" width=\"660\" height=\"370\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/717577\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>    Rachel Reeves, Chancellor Of The Exchequer,.<\/p>\n<p>        Picture: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/license\/1492916882\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><br \/>\nGetty<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Food sales were up 4.3% year on year, driven largely by inflation rather than volume growth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">British businesses have highlighted fears of tax hikes in Rachel Reeves\u2019 upcoming budget as a cause for meagre growth and lacklustre employment numbers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">Despite this, the Chancellor is being urged to pass a one-off wealth tax to find the billions she needs in her budget next month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">A think tank has said that a windfall one-off tax on existing wealth would be better than an annual levy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">An \u201cunexpected and credibly one-off assessment\u201d of existing wealth could be an \u201ceconomically efficient way to raise revenue\u201d and would avoid changing people\u2019s future behaviour, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph-text\">The Government is under pressure to balance the books ahead of November&#8217;s autumn statement amid warnings of a black hole estimated to be as much as \u00a350 billion in the public finances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Commuters walk across London Bridge in London. Picture: Getty Unemployment is up and earnings are falling, new data&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-199126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}