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Getty Images<\/p>\nMitchell Labiak<\/p>\n
Business reporter, BBC News<\/p>\n
Getty Images<\/p>\n
The UK jobs market has weakened as wage growth slows and the unemployment rate rises, official statistics show.<\/p>\n
The annual rate of pay growth in the three months between March and May slowed to 5%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate rose to 4.7%, its highest in four years, though the ONS has said the figure needs to be treated with caution due to problems with how the data is collected.<\/p>\n
Economists say a weaker labour market makes it more likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates in an attempt to boost the economy at its meeting next month.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/621875b0-62dd-11f0-b903-f515e3045d80.png.webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n
It added that survey data suggested that some firms may not be recruiting new workers or replacing ones who have left.<\/p>\n
The number of job vacancies is now at its lowest in 10 years, excluding the plunge seen during the pandemic when lockdowns stopped firms from hiring.<\/p>\n
Yael\u202fSelfin, chief economist at KPMG UK, said the “slowing pay growth opens the door for an interest rate cut in August”.<\/p>\n
“The impact of April’s tax and administrative changes has led to a marked slowdown in hiring activity among firms,” she added.<\/p>\n
“With domestic activity remaining sluggish, the MPC will likely want to provide support via looser policy to prevent a more significant deterioration in the labour market.”<\/p>\n
‘We’re managing by the skin of our teeth’<\/p>\n
![\"Andrew](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/d3295b10-62de-11f0-80b4-633e269c65cb.jpg.webp.webp\")
Andrew Teebay<\/p>\n
Peter Kinsella says he is more cautious about hiring staff for his restaurant<\/p>\n
Peter Kinsella runs two Spanish restaurants in Liverpool City centre and says this is the toughest period for the business since the financial crisis in 2008.<\/p>\n
He says the increase in employer national insurance contributions has “really impacted our recruitment. We employ fewer people than we did in March.”<\/p>\n
Peter has cut staffing hours, decreased opening times, and invests less in repairs in the restaurant to make money go further.<\/p>\n
“We’re managing, but by the skin of our teeth”, he says.<\/p>\n
He’s also being more cautious about hiring new staff, often reluctantly not replacing people who leave the business.<\/p>\n
“It’s a fantastic thing to take people on, to give them work. So we want to avoid at all costs those things that have a real impact on people’s lives, but we’ve had no choice”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitchell Labiak Business reporter, BBC News Getty Images The UK jobs market has weakened as wage growth slows…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[28,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-15847","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}