Exact rate wages are rising revealed – and what it means for your money
WAGES are still on the rise for millions of workers across the UK.
Official figures released today by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have revealed that basic pay is still growing.
Growth in regular pay, excluding bonuses, stood at 5.6% in the 12 months to January this year.
That was down from 6.2% in the three months to December last year and is the slowest rate rise since October 2022.
Taking into account inflation, which measures how much prices are rising, annual total pay increased by 1.4% in a boost for workers.
The ONS also said average weekly earnings were estimated at £672 for total earnings and £627 for regular earnings in January.
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Liz McKeown, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said: "Recent recent trends in the jobs market are continuing with earnings, in cash terms, growing more slowly than recently but, thanks to lower inflation, real terms pay continues to increase."
Meanwhile, the rate of unemployment rose to 3.9% in the three months to January from 3.8% the previous three months, the ONS said.
However, between December 2023 to February this year, the estimated number of vacancies in the UK fell by 43,000 to 908,000.
Alice Haines, personal finance analyst at Best Invest, said: "Salary rises are likely to be more muted this year as employers look to keep costs down and protect profits and some might find themselves without a job at all if businesses decide to go down the redundancy route to slash staffing costs."
A growth in wages is good news for millions of workers who have been battling against high inflation since 2022.
The most recent figures show the annual rate at which prices rise was 4% in the year to January, the same as the month before.
This was lower than the 4.2% that economists had forecast in a boost for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Inflation figures for February are set to be released next week on March 20.
If pay rises by less than inflation it squeezes incomes, as it means people's pay in real terms is worse off.
Inflation is a measure of how much goods and services are worth in a given period.
In recent months rising wages have been blamed for keeping inflation stubbornly high, which has led the Bank of England to push up borrowing costs for households by raising its base rate.
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