UK Unemployment Rate edges lower to 4.2% in quarter to August vs. 4.3% expected

• The UK Unemployment Rate unexpectedly drops to 4.2% in the quarter to August.
• The Claimant Count Change for Britain arrived at 20.4K in September.
• GBP/USD holds firmer toward 1.2300 after the mixed UK jobs data.

The United Kingdom’s (UK) ILO Unemployment Rate dropped slightly to 4.2% in the quarter to August, as against a 4.3% reading reported in the three months to July, according to the official data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Tuesday. The market consensus was a 4.3% print in the reported period.

Additional details showed that the number of people claiming jobless benefits jumped by 20.4K in September, as against the previous month’s 0.9K increase and 2.3K estimates.

The British Employment Change for August stood at -82K, compared with -207K recorded in July and forecast of -198K.

"Tomorrow we will publish a new series using additional data sources to produce adjusted levels and rates for employment, unemployment and inactivity for the latest two 3-monthly periods," the ONS said in a statement on Monday.

"We will not be publishing the unadjusted June to August LFS (Labour Force Survey) data tomorrow."

The agency delayed the release of employment statistics by a week to improve the quality of the data. However, the wage inflation data was released as planned on October 17.

Wage inflation in the United Kingdom (UK), as measured by the change in the Average Earnings Excluding Bonus, rose 7.8% 3M YoY in August, as against a 7.9% increase registered in July, the partial labor data released by ONS showed last Tuesday. The market expectation was for a 7.8% increase.

GBP/USD reaction to the UK employment report

GBP/USD failed to react to the mixed UK employment data. The pair is trading 0.14% higher on the day at 1.2270, as of writing.