UK Unemployments Falls to 11 Year Low

The UK unemployment rate has fallen to 4.9%, the lowest since July 2005, according to official figures.

The unemployment total fell to 1.65 million in the March-to-May period, down 54,000 from the previous quarter, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.

The figures cover the period before the UK vote to leave the European Union.
But some analysts warned the outcome of the vote meant the positive trend was unlikely to continue for much longer.

“The vote to leave the EU will almost certainly now cause some firms to put hiring decisions on hold or cut back headcounts altogether.

“Indeed, we expect the unemployment rate to begin to drift up over the coming quarters. The upshot is that these may be the best set of labour market figures for a while,” said Paul Hollingsworth, UK economist at Capital Economics.

The Bank of England had a similar view in its separate monthly summary of business conditions, which was also released on Wednesday.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza