{"id":483777,"date":"2026-03-19T09:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/483777\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T09:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:47:08","slug":"unemployment-remains-at-highest-rate-in-five-years-money-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/483777\/","title":{"rendered":"Unemployment remains at highest rate in five years | Money News"},"content":{"rendered":"

UK unemployment has remained at the highest rate in five years, new official figures show.<\/p>\n

The jobless rate was to 5.2% in the three months to January, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has said.<\/p>\n

Before last month<\/a>, such a high hadn’t been seen since the three months to January 2021.<\/p>\n

The increases in the last three months were “largely” due to young people, aged 18 to 24, the statistics body said.<\/p>\n

Money blog: New speed cameras trialled – here’s where they’re located<\/a><\/p>\n

The yearly increase, it said, was due to the rise in youth unemployment as well as those aged 50 to 64 years.<\/p>\n

The unemployment rate among 18 to 24-year-olds rose 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%.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Share<\/p>\n

\n Will Labour sort youth unemployment?\n <\/p>\n

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

The ONS, however, has continued to advise caution when interpreting changes in the monthly unemployment rate and job vacancy numbers over concerns about the reliability of the figures.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Employers have faced higher costs for employing staff due to the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions in April.<\/p>\n

Higher minimum wages for younger workers 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

Lower pay rises<\/p>\n

At the same time, wage growth was at its lowest in more than five years, the ONS said.<\/p>\n

It means pay is still rising faster than inflation, but more slowly than before, in both the private and public sectors.<\/p>\n

Average pay, including bonuses, rose 3.8%, while average weekly earnings, which include bonuses, increased 3.9%.<\/p>\n

It’s a big fall. Just a month earlier, those measures of pay increases had both been 4.2%.<\/p>\n

Green shoots?<\/p>\n

There are some signs of a rebound in the jobs market, though, as the number of payrolled employees rose slightly in January.<\/p>\n

The number of job vacancies remained stable, according to the ONS.<\/p>\n

Smaller businesses were more reluctant to hire staff and reduced the number of vacancies they posted.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

But that was made up by bigger firms looking for more staff, the ONS added.<\/p>\n

Redundancy numbers fell in the last three months, though they are higher compared to a year ago.<\/p>\n

The number of people reporting redundancy was 4.5 per 1,000 employees, from November 2025 to January 2026.<\/p>\n

Of course, none of this reflects the impact of the Iran war, which, due to the oil and gas price rises, will increase inflation.<\/p>\n

The war impact<\/p>\n

Things costing more can mean people spend less and businesses are under pressure, leading them to hire fewer staff and potentially let go of workers.<\/p>\n

As a result, these green shoots may evaportate and unemployment may rise further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UK unemployment has remained at the highest rate in five years, new official figures show. The jobless rate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-483777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483777","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=483777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}