UK unemployment just dropped unexpectedly and wages are finally climbing
REUTERS/Andrew Winning Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron points during a visit to a construction site in central London, May 27, 2014.
The UK's labour market figures for December just got released, and unemployment is down to 5.7%.
That's the lowest since 2008, and better than was forecast.
Economists were expecting no move in unemployment for December.
The plunge means unemployment has dropped massively in 2014: At the same time 12 months earlier, it was at 7.2%.
Wage data is also out, with a 2.1% increase in average weekly earnings. That's above what was expected too, and with inflation falling well below 1%, it means genuine real pay increases.
Pay growth is watched carefully at the moment. The Bank of England has been clear that an improvement in wage growth is one of the major things it's looking for as an indication that the economy is healthy enough for interest rates to rise.
Here's how it looks over a longer period:
There's a clear rise in both regular and total pay since early 2014, and the fall in inflation means the first repeated increase in real pay since before the financial crisis.