Closing post
Time to recap:
Soaring bonuses for City bankers and high signing-on fees for construction and IT professionals pushed Britons’ average annual pay up by 7% in March, but most workers suffered a fifth consecutive month of falling living standards.
Without bonus payments, workers were paid an average 4.2% wage increase in the three months to the end of March, well below the 7% inflation rate recorded in the same month.
After taking inflation into account, average pay including bonuses rose 1.4% in the year to January to March 2022, while excluding bonuses it fell 1.2%.
— Office for National Statistics (ONS) (@ONS) May 17, 2022
➡️https://t.co/vVZsVzhYo8 pic.twitter.com/YVSzjnhEFG
The Office for National Statistics also reported that the UK’s unemployment rate dropped to the lowest since 1974, while competition for workers pushed up vacancies to record highs.
The news helped to push the pound up by one and a half cents against the US dollar, as traders anticipated the Bank of England was more likely to keep raising interest rates.
For the first time on record, there were more job vacancies than people unemployed - with more adults dropping out of the labour market with long-term sickness.
Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, says the UK labour market is a “mixed picture”.
“Total employment, while up on the quarter, remains below its pre-pandemic level.
“Since the start of the pandemic, around half a million more people have completely disengaged from the labour market.
“However, job vacancies are still rising, reaching yet another record high.”
Economists warned that the squeeze on regular pay would get worse in the coming months, with tomorrow’s CPI report expected to show inflation hit around 9% in April.
Public sector pay rose by just 1.6%, lagging far behind the private sector at 8.2%.
The data led to more calls for an emergency budget, but there’s still no fresh action from the government.
NIESR, the economic research institute, predicts that UK private sector pay will continue to outpace the public sector in the current quarter
Rising prices have forced a quarter of adults to skip meals, a survey has found, with two-thirds choosing to leave the heating off due to the jump in energy prices.
Leading children’s charity Action for Children warned that hard-up families are skipping meals, wearing coats indoors to stay warm, and living in the dark because they can’t afford to switch on the lights.
Soaring food inflation could force schools to choose between offering smaller portions at lunchtime and using cheaper ingredients, according to the boss of one of the UK’s largest food wholesalers.
And there is worse to come, with the chairman of M&S predicting food inflation could hit 10% this year.
Archie Norman also backed government plans to override parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, saying that some food exported south of the border now requires 700 pages of customs documents, partly written in Latin.
In the US, retail sales have risen again as consumers kept spending despite the squeeze of inflation.
WalMart, though, missed analyst estimates and cut its earnings forecasts as rising price pressures hits its margins and operating costs. It cited higher fuel prices and labour costs, along with supply chain problems.
Stock markets have rallied, as concerns over the global economy eased, with Shanghai outlining plans to end its lockdown in June.
In London, the FTSE 100 is up 50 points in late trading, +0.7%, while Wall Street opened higher.
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter is in fresh uncertainty, after he said the deal “cannot move forward” until the social media company proves that less than 5% of its users are fake or spam accounts.
Twitter, though, says it is committed to completing the deal “on the agreed price and terms as promptly as practicable”.
Land Securities has reported record office leasing in London as the lifting of Covid restrictions fuels a return of workers and a surge in demand for prime space, as the property company bounced back to profit last year.
A quarter of Britons say they’ve skipped meals due to rising cost of living
The cost-of-living squeeze in Britain has led to a quarter of adults skipping meals, a survey has found.
Polling group IPSOS also found that two-thirds have kept their heating off when they would normally have turned it on, while half (52%) are already going out socialising less than normal.
As the Bank of England warns of "apocalyptic" food prices, new research from @IpsosUK / @SkyNews shows due to the cost of living:
— Cameron Garrett (@CameronGarrett_) May 17, 2022
🔴27% report already skipping meals
🔴65% not turned on their heating
🔴44% changed supermarkets
🔴44% are driving less https://t.co/rYV9axQXcP pic.twitter.com/SAkH8QoiSl
Among people on lower incomes, one in three people say they have missed meals recently because of the surge in inflation.
Ipsos also found that:
- Those in the North East/Yorkshire and Humber and Greater London most likely to believe they will be hit harder by cost of living than other parts of the country.
- Three-quarters say the UK Government is not doing enough to support the people through the crisis.
Gideon Skinner, Ipsos’s head of political research, said:
Concern about inflation is at a thirty-year high in Ipsos polling, and Britons across the country see the cost of living as both a national, local, and personal priority.
People are already telling us they have taken a range of actions to mitigate its effects – some with a direct impact on basics like food and heating – but given the economic forecasts there may well be more anxiety on the horizon.
This is going to maintain pressure on the Government to take more steps to help people through the cost of living crisis – already an area where they are less trusted than Labour, but this is an issue where even their own supporters want them to do more.
As the Bank of England warns of "apocalyptic" food prices, new research from @IpsosUK / @SkyNews shows due to the cost of living:
— Cameron Garrett (@CameronGarrett_) May 17, 2022
🔴27% report already skipping meals
🔴65% not turned on their heating
🔴44% changed supermarkets
🔴44% are driving less https://t.co/rYV9axQXcP pic.twitter.com/SAkH8QoiSl
Updated
