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Slow growth doesn’t hurt employment but an interest rate hike is made more likely

27 Jun 2018

The slowest economic growth in more than five years has failed to dent Britain’s jobs market, with the latest official figures showing a record employment rate in the first three months of 2018.

The Office for National Statistics said there were 32.34 million people in work in the first quarter of the year, an increase of 197,000 on the previous quarter and up by 396,000 on the first three months of 2017.

Although initial estimates suggest the economy grew by just 0.1% in the first quarter of 2018 – its weakest since 2012 – the UK’s employment rate rose by 0.4 points to 75.6% in the latest quarter, the highest since modern records began in 1971.

It is also noteworthy that the majority of jobs created were full-time posts. Economists, though, believe that the strong labour market data makes an August interest rate increase from the Bank of England more likely.