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Unemployment in the UK now at 4.9%

ended 18. June 2026

The unemployment rate in the UK was at 4.9% in the three months to April, down from 5% in the previous quarter.

Annual ​wage ⁠growth, excluding bonuses was 3.4% ​in the three months to April, official figures showed on Thursday, hours before the ⁠Bank of England announces its ⁠next interest rate decision.

Average earnings, including bonuses, climbed by 4.4% in the same period after increasing by 4.4% in the quarter through March.

  • Are you surprised by the figures?
  • Why do you think unemployment has gone down?
  • Does this move the dial on Bank of England's base rate decision at midday?

Responses asap.

4 responses from the Newspage community

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Kate Underwood
Founder & Chief People Strategist at Kate Underwood HR and Training
Surprised? A drop from 5% to 4.9% isn't a comeback, it's a glow-up that needs better lighting. Let's not throw a party over a rounding error.
Why's it down? Not because we're all merrily job-hopping into the sunset. People are white-knuckling the roles they've got because the alternative looks terrifying. And small businesses? They're not hiring, they're hoarding payroll like it's the last loo roll in 2020. Fewer vacancies flatters the figures beautifully.
Does it nudge the Bank at midday? One twitchy quarter doesn't make the Bank of England blink. They want a trend, not a tease. But here's the real story: the businesses I work with don't need another pat on the head from a press release. They need a rate cut so they can actually afford to grow.
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Nouran Moustafa
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
I am not massively surprised. A small fall from 5% to 4.9% does not suddenly mean the labour market is strong again. It tells me the jobs market is cooling, but not falling off a cliff.

Unemployment may have edged down because employers are still cautious about losing staff, even if they are not hiring aggressively. After the last few years, many businesses know how hard it can be to replace good people, so they may cut vacancies, reduce hours or delay expansion before making redundancies.

For the Bank of England, this does not dramatically move the dial today. The bigger issue is wage growth. Pay growth excluding bonuses at 3.4% is cooler, but earnings including bonuses are still running at 4.4%, which is not exactly screaming “job done” on inflation.

My view is that the Bank will remain cautious. This data gives them a little comfort, but not enough confidence to suddenly turn dovish. The labour market is softening, but wage pressure has not disappeared.
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Harry Goodliffe
Director at HTG Mortgages
If a 0.1% drop in unemployment is the good news, that tells you everything about where the economy is at. We're talking about a tiny movement against a backdrop of weak growth, stretched households and cautious employers. The labour market isn't booming; it's just deteriorating more slowly than some expected.
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Colette Mason
AI Ethics Consultant at Clever Clogs AI
For two years, Silicon Valley has enjoyed telling us that people are the expensive bit of the economy: slow, inconvenient, awkward and therefore ripe for replacement. And yet the latest labour market numbers rather complicate that story. Employment is broadly holding up. That is not the same as saying the labour market is in rude health. Vacancies, wage growth, hiring confidence and the cost of money still matter enormously.

But it does suggest employers may be bumping into a rather dull but important fact: work is not simply a bundle of tasks waiting to be shovelled into a chatbot. This is hardly a golden age for employees, but it does puncture the prevailing boardroom idea that humans have already been neatly priced out of the system.