The UK unemployment rate surprisingly fell in the three months to the end of August to 3.5% from 3.6% in the previous three months to the end of July, figures from Britain's official statistics office, the ONS, showed. This is the lowest British unemployment rate since 1974.

At the same time, however, employment also saw a surprise decline, the ONS said, with the number of people in employment falling by 109,000 between June and August, the biggest drop since the start of 2021.

Job vacancies fell by 46,000 to 1.246 million, the largest decline from June to August 2020, although the number of job vacancies remained at historically high levels.

Meanwhile, average weekly earnings, including bonuses, rose in the three months to August by 6% to £617 compared with the same period a year earlier and after growth of 5.5% in the previous quarter to July. Excluding bonuses, average weekly earnings for the June-August 2022 period rose 5.4% year-on-year, following a 5.2% increase in the previous period.

However, employment income fell by 2.4% year-on-year when high inflation is taken into account, marking another month of falling real incomes amid deteriorating living standards.

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