The strengthening in the UK job market started to show signs of easing in June with the unemployment rate remaining at its lowest level since 1974.
Heading into the European session, the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed the number of jobs rose by 160,000 in the three months from April to June, lower than expectations for a rise of 256,000.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate met expectations and remained unchanged at 3.8% in the same period.
Job vacancies in the UK reportedly fell for the first time since August 2020, an early sign that the country's strong labor market is beginning to ease.
The number of vacancies fell by 19,800 to 1.27 million in the three months to July.
These figures indirectly add to the evidence that the economy may be slowing under the pressure of a cost of living crisis and inflation at a 40-year high.
Meanwhile, growth in wages (excluding bonuses) continued to show improvement in the three months to June to 4.7%, but remained the biggest fall on record since 2001 when adjusted for the consumer price index measure of inflation.
The Bank of England (BOE) was previously concerned that the labor market was still 'hot' and had signaled plans to continue raising interest rates to prevent inflation from soaring, following the wage-price spiral*.
