Good afternoon, this is the market wrap with me Katie Pilbeam.
The markets are all over the place this afternoon, with investors here in the British capital looking at the US jobs numbers, the gas price concerns here and the constant threat of persistent high inflation.
Well the US jobs number proved to be disappointing with the economy adding 194,000 jobs, down from the 366,000 a month earlier.But the unemployment rate improved to 4.8% from 5.2%.
Not great, but it does mean that tapering of any kind of drastic form stimulus is unlikely for now as the country’s labour market still seems fragile. So it’s a real mix of sentiment for the markets to digest this afternoon.
Closer to home, Some encouraging news for new starters as salaries for those beginning a job and temporary staff wages have risen by the most amount for 24 years.
According to KPMG and the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) a combination of rising economic activity and fewer candidates for jobs is driving these big increases in starting pay.
Onto gas prices now, households are likely to see another “significant” rise in energy prices when the new price cap is set in April next year as a result of the “unprecedented” increase in gas prices according to regulator Ofgem.
Speaking at the Energy UK annual conference, Ofgem chief executive Jonathan Brearley said gas prices are six times higher than a year ago and have more than doubled in the last month.
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