UK claimant count jumped sharply by 86.6k in February, much larger than expectation of 9k. That represented a 3.3% monthly increase. It’s also 116.3%, or 1.4m, above the level a year ago in March 2020.
In the three months to January, unemployment rate dropped -0.1% to 5.0%, better than expectation of 5.2%. That’s still 1.1% higher than a year earlier. Total number of weekly hours worked dropped -83.1m hours to 968.0m.
