By Paul Hannon 
 

The U.K. economy continued to add jobs as 2018 drew to a close, despite the high levels of uncertainty facing businesses over the way the country will leave the European Union, a departure scheduled for March.

Business surveys and other data suggest the economy was slowing in the final three months of last year, but the Office for National Statistics Tuesday said the number of people in work in the three months through November was up 141,000 on the previous three-month period, raising the employment rate to 75.8%, a record high.

More people were looking for work, and the number of unemployed rose by 8,000 compared with the previous three-month period, although the jobless rate stayed at 4.0%, its lowest level for four decades.

With vacancies at a joint record high of 853,000, employers raised wages by 3.4% compared with the same period a year earlier. Since pay rose faster than consumer prices, real wages were 1.2% higher, the largest increase in two years.

The Bank of England has said it expects a tightening jobs market to push wages higher and keep inflation above its target over coming years, signaling that it intends to lift its key interest rate gradually and to a limited extent. However, those plans assume the U.K. leaves the EU with a trade agreement and after a transition period that gives businesses time to prepare for the new relationship.

The ONS also said the U.K. government borrowed 3 billion pounds ($3.86 billion) during December, a slight increase on the GBP2.7 billion in the same month of 2017. However, for the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 2019, borrowing fell to GBP35.9 billion, the lowest amount for 16 years.

Write to Paul Hannon at paul.hannon@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 22, 2019 04:56 ET (09:56 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.