On our first market update this morning we talked about the British employment and wages data coming up and what the expectations were. The economic data from the Uk is now published so let´s have a look at the numbers. Looking at the numbers which are mainly positive you get the feeling that the British economy doesn´t care about Brexit, but don´t forget that the data is for Q2 when the majority thought that Britain would vote to remain in the EU, and the referendum took place in the very last days of Q2. 

GBP/USD surged more than 100 pips after the economic data was released

Anyway, here are the numbers: the unemployment fell to 4.9% from 5.0%, the number of unemployed people filing for benefits was only 400 against 4,100 expected and the wages grew by 2.3% in the Q2 from 2.0% in Q1. These are all good numbers apart from the average earnings (wages) excluding bonuses which grew by 2.2% against 2.4% expected. I guess there are a lot of bonuses in this country, but I wonder where they go. Do the executives give these bonuses to themselves?