'Income freeze' could finally be over as jobs total hits record high
The Office for National Statistics confirmed that weekly earnings, excluding bonuses, increased by 0.4 per cent above the Consumer Price Index measure of inflation over the past 12 months.
A total of 32,340,000 people were employed in the three months to the end of March, up by 396,000 on a year earlier.
It means that 75.6 per cent of the workforce now have jobs, the highest since records began in 1971. Chancellor Philip Hammond said: "Growth in real wages means that people are starting to feel the benefit of more money in their pockets.
“Now the focus has to be on ensuring that wages keep rising faster than inflation, so living standards increase."
Yesterday's figures also showed that Britain's unemployment rate has fallen to 4.2 per cent, the lowest level since 1975.
A total of 1.42 million people were jobless but seeking work, 46,000 fewer than for October to December 2017, and 116,000 fewer than a year earlier.
But the UK economy's productivity fell by 0.5 per cent during the first three months in this year, raising concerns that the jobs boom is failing to create a significant increase in output.
There was also a slight fall of 28,000 in the number of EU nationals working in the UK in the past year, down to 2.29 million.
But campaigners for lower net migration to the UK warned that this did not signal a mass exit of European migrants after the Brexit vote.
Lord Green of Deddington, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: "These new labour force figures dispose of any claim of a Brexodus.
"Workers born in the EU, at 2.37million, are 155,000 higher than in the same quarter before the referendum."