BREAKING: Pound dips on higher unemployment in the UK 🇬🇧 📈

07:00 GMT, United Kingdom – labour market data for December:

Unemployment rate: actual 5.2%, forecast 5.2%, previous 5.1%
Average Earnings Index: actual 4.2%, forecast 4.2%, previous 4.5%
Average Earnings Index + Bonus: actual 4.2%, forecast 4.6%, previous 4.6%
Employment change 3M/3M: actual 52K, previous 82K

The UK labor market continues to soften, with the unemployment rate climbing to 5.2% and payrolled employees dropping by 134,000 year-on-year in January 2026 (early estimates). While the employment rate dipped to 75.0%, vacancies remained stagnant at 726,000.

Cooling wage pressures are evident as annual earnings growth hit 4.2%, leaving real-term gains at a modest 0.5%. Despite public sector pay resilience, the broader decline in payrolls and rising claimant counts (1.691m) signal a weakening trend.

This fundamental cooling fueled the GBPUSD dip below the key support level of 1.36000 as markets price in a more cautious economic outlook and potentially more easing from Bank of England.

Source: xStation5

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