By Kolawole Ojebisi
The United Kingdom, under the administration of Keir Starmer, has found itself at a critical juncture as the country’s unemployment rate climbed to the highest since August 2021.
The data released in a statement issued by the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday show that the unemployment rate climbed to 4.5 percent in the first quarter of this year.
That compared with 4.4 percent for the three months to the end of February, the ONS added.
The development has been attributed to twin factors of UK tax hike and US tariffs which have negatively impacted businesses in Britain.
The statement further maintained that Tuesday’s data covers the period before April’s introduction of a hike to a business tax laid out in the Labour government’s maiden budget in October.
It also precedes a baseline 10-percent tariff imposed on the UK and other countries by US President Donald Trump last month.
“The broader picture continues to be of the (UK) labour market cooling, with the number of employees on payroll falling in the first quarter of the year,” noted Liz McKeown, ONS director of economic statistics.
“Wage growth slowed slightly in the latest period but remains relatively strong, with public and private sectors… showing little difference,” she added.
Reacting to the development and its potential implications, analysts said the data would likely see the Bank of England cut its key interest rate a further two times this year, having reduced borrowing costs twice already in 2025.
“While the jobs market weakened further, this isn’t feeding through to a marked easing in pay growth,” noted Ruth Gregory, deputy chief UK economist at Capital Economics.
“That will probably keep the Bank of England cutting interest rates at the current pace of once every quarter.”
She added that “further softening in employment in April suggests businesses continued to respond to the rise in business taxes and the minimum wage by reducing headcount”.
This is coming days after Nigerian-British Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch called on the country’s Prime Minister, Keri Starmer, to stem the rising tide of immigration in the country .
Badenoch urged Starmer to adopt stringent measures proposed in the Conservative Party’s bill, stressing that the UK is not a ‘hotel’.
