Annual pay growth has improved to 2.4% but the decline in UK unemployment slowed to a crawl, official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported the upturn in regular average earnings - excluding bonuses - for the three months to November, up from the previous rate of 2.3%.

It was a better than expected reading and the strongest since December 2016.

That was enough to help the pound surge above $1.42 against the US dollar, a fresh post-Brexit vote high - with the rally also helped by weakness in the US currency sparked by comments from US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

But pay growth is still trailing behind inflation, which has been running at around 3% in recent months.


It means that, for the ninth month in a row, the ONS reported that pay had fallen in real terms, this time down by 0.5%.

Meanwhile, the number of people in employment rose by 102,000, far ahead of forecasts, to a record 32.2 million.

However, the decline in unemployment slowed, with the jobless total down by just 3,000 to 1.439 million.

The UK's jobless rate remained unchanged from last time, at 4.3%, its lowest level since 1975.

Senior ONS statistician David Freeman said: "Demand for workers clearly remains strong.

"Nevertheless, inflation remains higher than pay growth and so the real value of earnings continues to decline."

Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey said she was "delighted" by the overall figures but she admitted that just after Christmas "people might be feeling a squeeze on their finances".

Economists were divided over the figures.

Paul Hollingsworth, senior UK economist at Capital Economics, said a further acceleration in wage growth was in prospect and could prompt a series of further interest rate hikes from the Bank of England over the coming year.

But Samuel Tombs, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said pay increases were unlikely to improve enough to see any rate hike before November.