'The unemployment rate has risen - expect it to rise even more,' says Aquis Exchange's David Buik

15 November 2022, 17:42

Nick Ferrari gets an update on the markets from David Buik

By Melissa Fleur Afshar

@melissafleura

Ahead of the Chancellor's budget unveiling on Thursday 17th November, Aquis Exchange's David Buik appeared on Nick Ferrari at breakfast to dissect new employment data with the presenter.

The markets commentator shared that the unemployment rate has gone up by 0.1%, from 3.5% to 3.6%, and that the payroll figure has risen to 74,000.

Mr Buik quickly shared that the latter figure is simply a symptom of the COVID-19 pandemic career-change and early retirement boom.

"[The payroll figure] is really misleading, because outside of that we've still got this huge chasm of people aged between 55 years old and upwards who have still got plenty of work left in them, but who threw in the towel during the COVID-19 pandemic and never came back," said Mr Buik.

"This is why this is a slightly distorted figure."

READ MORE: Autumn Budget 2022: When is it and what it means for you

Mr Buik also revealed that he expects to see the unemployment rate rise, "as high as 3.8%".

In his exchange with Nick Ferrari, the Aquis Exchange money commentator also shared that the salary rates analysed in the dataset stood at 6%, and 6.7% for those in the private sector.

"We were only expecting to see 5.4," said Mr Buik.

"[However], we are still miles behind inflation".

When questioned by Nick Ferrari on how the nation's financial standing could be strengthened, Mr Buik suggested putting focus on filling all vacant employment positions.

"We will have this Draconian budget," said Mr Buik.

"But if we [want to] try and stimulate the economy and make sure that we won't go down, there are still 1.4 million positions in this country that people will not do the work for over here that need to be filled".

Mr Buik's answer to filling the employment gaps is in what he called, "proper controlled immigration", to "give the economy some stimulation".

Nick Ferrari then probed Mr Buik on the sectors which are seeing the most shortages.

To this, Mr Buik responded: "technology, nurses, care homes, agricultural, we just can't get the people in this country to do this work".

Towards the end of the interview, the two briefly discussed London's now second-place position in the 'most valuable European stock market rankings'.

Britain's Capital had previously held first place in the competitive market for a number of years, but had recently been knocked off the top spot by the Parisian stock market, by a mere figure of 0.4%.

"I am hanging my head in complete shame, it is true and I am very upset about it," said Mr Buik.