UK unemployment ticks up but wage growth hits two-decade-high August 15, 2023 The rate of UK unemployment rose to 4.2 per cent in the three months to June from 3.9 per cent in the previous three months, the Office for National Statistics said. However, this was tempered by annual growth in pay – excluding bonuses – up to 7.8 per cent in June. This is the highest [...]
Analysis: Why record wage growth will give the Bank of England kittens – and see them raise rates again August 15, 2023 Wage growth outstripping inflation should be good news, but Bank of England wonks will fear a wage price spiral is in play
Bank of England outage hits key payments systems processing billions August 14, 2023 The Bank of England says it has resolved a technical issue which shut down a vital system that processes around £1 trillion in transactions every day. The central bank said the “issue has been resolved and settlement will resume shortly”. The issue hit its real-time gross settlement (RTGS) service, used to settle transactions between banks [...]
Santander becomes latest bank to cut mortgage rates amid falling inflation August 14, 2023 Santander has become the latest high street lender to reduce the rates of its mortgage deals, following a stream of other cuts by fellow banks last week, in a signal of hope for prospective buyers. On Monday, the bank cut its selected residential purchase and remortgage fixed rates by between 0.05 per cent and 0.29 [...]
Unemployment to remain unchanged at four per cent as jobs market cooling continues August 14, 2023 Experts are expecting the slow cooling of the jobs market to continue when the Office for National Statistics (ONS) releases new data on Tuesday morning. The unemployment rate in the three months to the end of June is expected to remain unchanged at 4.0%, according to a consensus supplied by Pantheon Macroeconomics. But within this [...]
Cost of living pressures set to ease as inflation tipped to fall again August 14, 2023 Cost of living pressures facing households are set to ease, as experts predict inflation will fall below wage growth for the first time since last April. Official figures out on Tuesday are tipped to show that wage growth hit 7.4 per cent in the three months to June on an annual basis, up from 7.3 [...]
London growth continues to outpace every other region amid interest rate pain August 14, 2023 London’s economy has continued to outpace the rest of the country even as rising interest rates and recessionary fears drag on confidence across the UK, a closely watched survey has revealed.
John Lewis CEO: Bailey wants you to be gloomy – and it’s working August 13, 2023 The new Chief Executive of John Lewis has given a stark warning to the Bank of England, cautioning against higher interest rates that could “tip into recession”. Nish Kankiwala was appointed as the Partnership’s first Chief Executive in March and has since been laying out his recovery plan for the struggling high street favourites John [...]
After the economy grew again, will Bank of England’s rate hikes tip the UK into recession? August 11, 2023 The UK economy grew faster than expected in June, expanded 0.5 per cent, helping to bring growth in the second quarter to 0.2 per cent – but analysts are divided about what the figures say for the coming months. Growth in June was given a boost by a strong performance from the production sector, which [...]
Mortgage and rent payments ‘difficult’ for almost 40 per cent of Brits August 11, 2023 Some 38 per cent of Brits have confessed to finding it difficult to afford their rent or mortgage payments over the past month, as the cost of living crisis continues to wreak havoc on the public’s personal finances. This figure was around 29 per cent in early August 2022, new figures from the ONS show, [...]