UK Unemployment Rate falls to 4.9% in February vs. 5.2% expected

Lallalit Srijandorn FXStreet

The United Kingdom’s (UK) ILO Unemployment Rate fell to 4.9% in the three months to February after reporting 5.2% in the previous reading, data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed on Tuesday.

The data came in better than the market forecast of 5.2%.

Additional details of the report showed that the number of people claiming jobless benefits rose by 26.8K in March, compared with a revised increase of 17.1K in February and the expected 21.4K gain.

The Employment Change data came in at 25K in February, against 84K recorded in January.

Meanwhile, Average Earnings, excluding Bonus, in the UK ticked up by 3.6% three months year-over-year (3M YoY) in February versus a 3.8% growth booked previously. The market expectation was for a 3.5% print.

Another measure of wage inflation, Average Earnings, including Bonus, climbed by 3.8% in the same period after increasing by 4.1% (revision) in the quarter through January. The data beat the estimate of 3.6%.

GBP/USD reaction to the UK employment report

GBP/USD edges slightly higher following the release of the UK employment data. The pair is trading modestly losses on the day at 1.3522, as of writing.

Pound Sterling Price Today

The table below shows the percentage change of British Pound (GBP) against listed major currencies today. British Pound was the strongest against the Australian Dollar.

	USD	EUR	GBP	JPY	CAD	AUD	NZD	CHF
USD		0.11%	0.06%	0.03%	0.03%	0.22%	-0.27%	0.06%
EUR	-0.11%		-0.04%	-0.07%	-0.08%	0.12%	-0.37%	-0.04%
GBP	-0.06%	0.04%		-0.04%	-0.02%	0.16%	-0.33%	0.01%
JPY	-0.03%	0.07%	0.04%		0.03%	0.20%	-0.31%	0.05%
CAD	-0.03%	0.08%	0.02%	-0.03%		0.17%	-0.33%	0.03%
AUD	-0.22%	-0.12%	-0.16%	-0.20%	-0.17%		-0.50%	-0.13%
NZD	0.27%	0.37%	0.33%	0.31%	0.33%	0.50%		0.36%
CHF	-0.06%	0.04%	-0.01%	-0.05%	-0.03%	0.13%	-0.36%

The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the British Pound from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the US Dollar, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent GBP (base)/USD (quote).

Author

Lallalit Srijandorn

FXStreet

Lallalit Srijandorn is a Parisian at heart. She has lived in France since 2019 and now becomes a digital entrepreneur based in Paris and Bangkok.

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