Key economic indicators

Earnings and pay

% annual rise Whole economy* Manufacturing* Services* Private sector* Public sector* LRD average pay deals**

August 03 (r) 3.5 3.1 3.8 3.0 5.9 3.1

September 3.7 3.5 3.9 3.2 5.5 3.0

October 3.6 3.2 3.8 3.4 4.7 3.2

November 3.3 3.5 3.2 3.1 4.2 3.3

December 3.4 3.4 3.3 3.1 4.3 3.3

January 04 7.3 3.6 8.7 8.1 4.1 3.1

February 3.9 3.6 3.7 3.9 4.4 3.0

March 4.3 3.2 4.8 4.4 4.3 3.0

April 4.6 4.8 4.4 4.7 4.1 3.1

May 4.1 4.4 3.7 4.0 4.6 3.1

June (r) 4.1 4.1 4.0 4.1 4.5 3.1

July (r) 3.3 3.8 3.0 3.2 3.7 3.0

August (p) 4.1 3.4 4.0 4.0 4.4 3.0

Headline rate for August*** 3.9 3.8 3.6 3.8 4.2

* Average weekly earnings in Great Britain, seasonally adjusted, as monitored by National Statistics.

** The midpoint of pay settlements for the latest three months as monitored on the Labour Research Department's PayLine database.

*** The average of the earnings increase figures for the latest three months compared with a year earlier.

(r) revised (p) provisional

Retail prices

Retail prices index (Jan 1987 = 100) RPI % annual increase Consumer prices index % increase

August 03 181.6 2.9 1.4

September 182.5 2.8 1.4

October 182.6 2.6 1.4

November 182.7 2.5 1.3

December 183.5 2.8 1.3

January 04 183.1 2.6 1.4

February 183.8 2.5 1.3

March 184.6 2.6 1.1

April 185.7 2.5 1.2

May 186.5 2.8 1.5

June 186.8 3.0 1.6

July 186.8 3.0 1.4

August 187.4 3.2 1.3

September 188.1 3.1 1.1

Source: National Statistics

Full-time average weekly earnings by occupation

All workers 502.90

All male 554.90

All female 418.60

Managers 790.10

Professionals 687.80

Associate professionals* 558.00

Admin & secretarial 357.70

Skilled/craft 435.90

Services** 299.00

Sales 305.40

Operatives 395.10

Other manual jobs*** 323.40

* Associate professionals include technicians, nurses, police, firefighters, media/PR workers, train drivers, legal and finance workers and sales reps.

** Services means personal service occupations such as care workers, travel assistants, hairdressers, caretakers.

*** Other manual jobs refers to "elementary" occupations including farm workers, labourers, dockers, postal workers, porters, waiters, cleaners.

Source: New Earnings Survey April 2003 (uprated)