UK real wages fall at sharpest rate on record

UK real wages fell at the sharpest rate on record between April and June, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics.

Average total pay including bonuses rose 5.1% between April and June, with regular pay excluding bonuses up 4.7%. However, adjusted for inflation, total pay fell 2.5% and regular pay was down by a record 3%.

Meanwhile, job vacancies in the three months to the end of July fell for the first time in two years, dropping 19,800 to 1.27m. Vacancies remain at historically high levels, but this marked the first quarterly decline for this period since 2020.

The unemployment rate held steady in the three months to June at 3.8%.

Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said: "The number of people in work grew in the second quarter of 2022, whilst the headline rates of unemployment and of people neither working nor looking for a job were little changed.

"Meanwhile, the total number of hours worked each week appears to have stabilised very slightly below pre-pandemic levels.

"Redundancies are still at very low levels. However, although the number of job vacancies remains historically very high, it fell for the first time since the summer of 2020.

"The real value of pay continues to fall. Excluding bonuses, it is still dropping faster than at any time since comparable records began in 2001."