PAYstats Pay and Labour Market Statistics, March 2020

Latest pay and labour market statistics March 2020:

• The Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) 12-month inflation rate was 1.7% in February 2020, down from 1.8% in January 2020.
• The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) 12-month rate was 1.7% in February 2020, down from 1.8% in January.
• The UK employment rate in the three months to January 2020 was estimated at a joint record high of 76.5%, 0.4 percentage points higher than a year earlier and 0.3 percentage points up on the previous quarter.
• The UK unemployment rate in the three months to January 2020 was estimated at 3.9%, largely unchanged compared with a year earlier and 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous quarter.
• Estimated annual growth in average weekly earnings for employees in Great Britain in the three months to January 2020 was 3.1% for both total pay (including bonuses) and regular pay (excluding bonuses).
• In real terms (after adjusting for inflation), annual growth in both total pay and regular pay is estimated to be 1.5% in the three months to January 2020, down from a recent peak of 2.0% in the three months to June 2019.