For a start it's not "England". The writer is talking about a set of nations called the United Kingdom, Great Britain, or the UK. This talk of "England" leaves out Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland.
I don't see the job market here as being that hot at all. The manufacturing sector is shrinking every day as the jobs go to China. The remaining jobs are either low pay or minimum wage. The minimum wage was increased recently.
The main rate of the National Minimum Wage (NMW) is £4.85 per hour as of 1 October 2004.
businesslink.gov.uk!1899935411!1103464166810?r.l3=1074402393&r.l2=1073876962&r.l1=1073858787&r.s=sc&type=RESOURCES&itemId=1074403799
so the writers comments..
Wages rose by 4.4% in the three months through October, the highest rise in several years and more evidence of nascent inflation.
is just another piece of B/S on top of the endless supply of utter B/S the British government spews out on a daily basis. The goverment spends most of its time fiddling with figures trying to make them look good instead of fixing any of the national problems.
... just my view. Sorry to be downbeat on our useless incompetent government, and our crappy overspending economy, but thats how I see things. -g-
business.timesonline.co.uk
Cracks start to show in state of UK job market
By Gary Duncan, Economics Editor
THE FIRST signs emerged yesterday that Britain’s previously booming job market may be succumbing to a downturn, even as figures showed pay pressures accelerating.
Headline official data showed a further fall in joblessness, while overall employment continued to climb to record levels.
However, this rosy picture of job market conditions was thrown into doubt by a separate official survey showing that employers have reported a sharp drop in total numbers in work. The quarterly workforce jobs survey of companies’ payrolls showed that employment tumbled by 41,000 in the third quarter.
This marked the first quarterly decline since autumn 2001, in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the sharpest fall since spring 1998.
The workforce jobs report showed a drop of 70,000 in private sector employment, offset by 29,000 extra taxpayer-funded jobs in the nation’s burgeoning public sector.
Since the start of the year, employment measured by the survey of employers has fallen by 112,000 in the private sector, with only 115,000 extra public-sector jobs preventing a fall in total numbers in work.
The gloomy survey data, updated only quarterly by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), called into question the more upbeat indications from headline figures which normally command greater attention and were yesterday hailed by ministers.
The claimant count of unemployment fell by 3,400 in November to a new low of 833,200.
The Government’s preferred jobs market figures, based on the Labour Force Survey (LFS) of individuals, also showed unemployment down, by 29,000 over the three months to the end of October. This was despite a continued steep loss of manufacuring jobs, down by 112,000 over the same period.
The LFS data showed numbers of people in work at a record high of 28.4 million.
But some City economists sounded warnings that the drop in employment reported by firms in the workforce jobs survey was likely to be signalling worsening conditions as the economy slows.
“Forget the claimant count and the (LFS) data . . . the key data were workforce jobs. Similar to the late 1980s, a housing market bust is leading to a decline in employment,” said James Carrick, of ABN Amro.
Other economists said that, at best, the conflicting numbers raised question marks over the future buoyancy of the jobs market.
Vicky Redwood, of Capital Economics, noted that the public sector was helping to underpin employment.
But earnings data meanwhile suggested that the past strength of employment conditions is feeding through into stronger wage growth, keeping a further rise in interest rates next year on the agenda.
In a key measure of pay pressures, underlying average earnings growth, after excluding the impact of bonuses, acclerated to an annual rate of 4.4 per cent in the three months to October. This was the fastest increase for more than two-and-a-half years.
Headline average earnings also gathered steam, rising to 4.1 per cent, from a September figure which was revised up to 3.8 per cent.
The increase in the headline pace of pay growth was driven by big bonuses paid in the financial services sector this autumn, according to the ONS.
Economists said that the pick-up in wage growth would keep alive the possibility of further rate rises from the Bank of England in 2005. “Don’t bet against a further rate rise yet,” said Ross Walker, of RBS Financial Markets.
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