The UK unemployment rate has hits new five-year low.
But average earnings only grow by 0.7% -- well behind inflation -- partly due to bonus effect
A record rise in employment
Instant reaction
10.08am BST
Ian Stewart, chief economist at Deloitte, reckons the weak wage growth in the last quarter is good news for the Bank of England (!).
He says:
A powerful labour market recovery is delivering remarkable job growth and rapid falls in unemployment. Self-employment is booming and full time employment is also growing at the fastest rate in nine years.
The good news for the Bank of England is that this broad-based jobs recovery shows few signs of generating inflationary wage pressures.
9.58am BST
Today's report confirms another trend -- the recent steady fall in unemployment has partly been driven by a big rise in self-employed workers.
The ONS explains that since February-April 2013:
9.56am BST
You can today's labour market report yourself, here.
9.53am BST
Here's Press Association's early take on the news that Britain's jobless rate has fallen to its lowest rate since 2009, while wage growth slowed sharply.
9.48am BST
UK #unemployment rate down to 6.6%, lowest in 5+ years. Charted here against Eurozone and US data pic.twitter.com/HtADev81r6
2.16 million people are unemployed in UK. Down 347,000 on a year ago but around 500,000 higher than before financial crisis began.
Due to the tax dodging (50%) bonus payments of last year average UK wages were 1.7% lower in April than in April 2013. #GBP
woooah really sharp slowdown in average UK weekly earnings. Now at +0.7% from +1.9%. Lowest since March last yr
9.46am BST
Today's jobs data shows that average earnings actually *fell* by 1.7% in April alone.
That's why total pay growth in February-April fell to just 0.7%, from 1.9% in January-March.
9.34am BST
BREAKING: Britain's jobless rate has hit a new five-year low, but real wages are shrinking.
The UK jobless rate has fallen to just 6.6% in the three months to April, which is the lowest since early 2009. That's down from 6.8%, a bigger fall than expected.
9.05am BST
Just 25 minutes until we get the latest UK unemployment data.
Britain's "cost of living crisis" will return to the fore today when official data shows real wages falling again.
Pay growth briefly edged higher than inflation in the spring, marking a break in years of falling real wages and providing a boost to the Conservatives as they seek to take the squeeze on household budgets off the pre-election agenda. Labour has argued that what it calls a cost of living crisis is far from over.
In fact over the last eleven months the decline in jobless claims has more or less averaged around 30k a month, a pretty good sign of an economy that appears to be humming along nicely.
8.51am BST
Germany's Lufthansa just startled the Frankfurt stock market with an unexpected profit warning, sending its shares tumbling 9%.
Other airline shares have also been hit, after Lufthansa slashed its operating profit forecast by a third, to 1bn, from up to 1.5bn before.
Reason for lowering the forecast is a weaker than expected revenue development in the passenger and freight businesses as well as negative result impacts from strikes and the devaluation of the Venezuelan Bolivar.
Lufthansa dragging down the sector with IAG down 3.5%, Air France down 3.5%...
Carnage in Lufthansa shares this morning, after surprise profit warning: pic.twitter.com/1L3BG5z4BZ
8.39am BST
Europe's stock markets are open, and the main indices have fallen by around 0.2%-0.3%.
The FTSE 100 is down 13 points, pulled down by heavyweight Vodafone going ex-dividend (ie, it's too late to qualify for the next payment to shareholders).
King sticks by like for like sales slightly up this year. Q1 up against tough year-earlier when horsemeat scandal boosted Sainsbury sales.
8.31am BST
Hungary has slipped into deflation, after its Consumer Price Index showed that prices fell by 0.1% over the last 12 months.
And another one bites the dust. Hungary joins negative inflation club, -0.1% yoy. #deflation
8.30am BST
Hold onto your hats, folks. An inquiry into the Payday loan market has discovered that it's uncompetitive.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has concluded that a payday customer could typically save around £30 to £60 per year if the market worked properly.
Wonga did not create modern Britain; modern Britain created Wonga.
8.14am BST
The World Bank also warned that the global economy is not "totally out of the woods yet". Governments need to prepare for further trouble ahead:
Kaushik Basu, the bank's senior vice president and chief economist, said:
A gradual tightening of fiscal policy and structural reforms are desirable to restore fiscal space depleted by the 2008 financial crisis. In brief, now is the time to prepare for the next crisis."
World Bank: 'Now is the time to prepare for next crisis' http://t.co/ecSxZZ4Ju3
7.58am BST
Overnight, the World Bank warned that growth in the euro area is "tepid", having emerged from recession a year ago.
The Euro Area is still in the early phases of recovery. GDP and private consumption spending in some periphery economies remain nearly 10 percent below pre-crisis peaks and investment is 40-50 percent lower in Spain, Portugal and Ireland. To date the recovery in the periphery has been driven by exports, reflecting competitiveness gains earned painfully through weak or even negative wage growth that have brought down unit labor costs.
Competitiveness gains continue to remain strong, supporting underlying activity. Encouragingly, there are signs that the labor market may be bottoming out, with unemployment rates throughout the Euro Area beginning to inch down, albeit from extremely high levels. Financial conditions have also eased considerably, reflected in the fall in periphery sovereign debt spreads to pre-crisis lows.
7.47am BST
WH Smith also reported underwhelming results this morning, driven down by a 4% decline in sales on the high street.
Total takings across the newsagent group were flat in the last 14 weeks, while like-for-like sales (a better measure of performance) fell 2%.
March-June WHSmith High Street total sales down 4%, like-for-like sales were also down 4%. When was the last time you went to WH Smith?
7.42am BST
Sainsbury isn't immune to the shockwaves reverberating through Britain's grocery business -- its sales have fallen for the second quarter in a row.
Like-for-like retail sales fell by 1.1% in the first three months, excluding fuel.
Lower food price inflation and reduced fuel prices are a welcome respite to customers finances but they continue to spend cautiously, leading to industry growth in the quarter being the slowest in a decade.
Justin King's last figures before he steps down as Sainsbury's boss. He's been capturing the moment with his team... pic.twitter.com/cn6JRpPY8w
7.36am BST
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the financial markets, the economy, the eurozone and business.
Quite a lot going on in the UK this morning -- starting with the latest unemployment figures, at 9.30am BST.
Bad weather in the US, tension in the Ukraine, the slowdown in China and political strife in countries such as Turkey will all delay an expected pick-up in activity, the bank said in its half-yearly Global Economic Prospects.
Its president, Jim Kim, expressed disappointment at the prospect of a third straight year of sub-5% growth in the developing world, which he said was insufficient to meet his aim of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030.
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