Employment in Britain at a record high despite fears around Brexit

The U.K. economy continued to add jobs in the final months of 2018, in spite of persistent jitters over the country’s exit from the European Union. Despite a backdrop of sagging business surveys and other indicators suggesting slowing economic expansion, the Office for National Statistics said Tuesday that the number of people in work in the three months through December was up 167,000 on the previous three-month period, keeping the employment rate unchanged at a record high rate of 75.8%.

Fewer people were looking for work, with the number of unemployed slipping by 14,000 compared with the previous three-month period. The jobless rate stayed at 4.0% — its lowest level for four decades. Vacancies were at a joint record high of 870,000, and the pace of wage growth stayed steady at 3.4% quarter-on-quarter. With pay increasing faster than consumer prices, real wages again rose by 1.2%, the joint-largest increase in two years.

The Bank of England has said it expects a tightening jobs market to push wages higher and keep inflation above its target over coming years, and has signaled its intention gradually to raise interest rates. That said, those plans assume the U.K. leaves the EU with a trade agreement and after a transition period that gives businesses time to prepare for the new relationship. With the U.K. set to leave the trade block at the end of March, no such deal has yet been agreed. In that context, the number of European Union nationals working in the U.K. slipped 3.2% in 2018’s final quarter on the year, while the number of non-EU foreign nationals climbed by 5%.

U.K. jobs at record high despite Brexit worries, MarketWatch, Feb 19