The UK labor market continued to recover in three months to January with a quarterly rise in the employment rate and a fall in the unemployment rate, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.
The ILO jobless rate dropped 0.2 percentage points on the quarter to 3.9 percent, which was also below the expected rate of 4.0 percent.
At the same time, the employment rate increased 0.1 percentage points to 75.6 percent.
In three months to January, average earnings including bonuses grew 4.8 percent from the previous year versus the forecast of 4.6 percent.
Excluding bonuses, growth in average earnings was 3.8 percent, also faster than the expected 3.7 percent.
Data showed that the number of job vacancies in December to February rose to a new record of 1,318,000.
In February, payrolled employees showed another monthly increase of 275,000 to a record 29.7 million.
Further, jobless claims declined sharply by 48,100 in February from the last month. The claimant count fell to seasonally adjusted 4.4 percent from 4.5 percent in January.
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