Unemployment falls and wages climb Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that the unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage points between November and January to 3.9%. Meanwhile, the number of UK workers on payrolls rose by 275,000 between January and February, hitting a record 29.7m, while vacancies also climbed to a new high of 1.3m on the back of a 105,000 quarter-on-quarter increase. While growth in average total pay including bonuses was 4.8% in the quarter to January, regular pay increases were lower at 3.8%. Analysis shows that as the increase in regular pay did not keep up with inflation, wages fell by 1% in real terms - the steepest decline since July 2014. ONS chief economist Grant Fitzner said: “The labour market continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic, with the number of unemployed people falling below its pre-pandemic level for the first time and another strong rise in employees on payroll in February. However, the number of people out of work and not looking for a job rose again, meaning total employment remained well below its pre-pandemic level.” Chancellor Rishi Sunak commented: “I am confident that our labour market is in a good position to deal with the current global challenges, with payrolled employee numbers above pre-pandemic levels in every nation and region and redundancies at record lows."