Britons have seen rises in their pay packets fall behind soaring inflation at a record pace as the cost-of-living crisis tightens its grip on UK households, according to official figures. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed that regular wages excluding bonuses plunged by 4.5% in April when taking Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation into account – the biggest fall since records began in January 2001.
It comes as inflation has jumped to a 40-year high of 9% due to soaring energy and fuel bills amid the impact of the Ukraine war, and as economies emerge from the pandemic. The ONS data showed that, in the three months to April, regular pay excluding bonuses fell 3% after the impact of inflation – the biggest fall since November 2011 – despite a 4.2% rise in average earnings.
But in a welcome dose of good news on the economy, the figures showed the number of UK workers on payrolls rose by another 90,000 or 0.3% between April and May to 29.6 million. The unemployment rate edged up slightly to 3.8% in the three months to April, from 3.7% in the previous three months, though it remained close to 50-year lows.
