Legal & General have warned today that over 3 million could be unemployed by the end of 2012 – this was on the back of the latest unemployment figures released by the Office for National Statistics last month, showing an increase of 118,000 unemployed over the last quarter to reach 2.68 million.

The rate of Consumer Prices Index inflation rose to 4.5% in August, up from 4.4% in July, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics. The Retail Prices Index also increased to 5.2% from 5%. The main upward pressures to annual inflation came from clothing, fuels and lubricants, furniture and household goods and domestic heating. The main downward pressure to annual inflation came from transport services, particularly passenger transport by air, sea and rail. There was also a downward pressure from recreation and culture, particularly from games, toys and hobbies and, to a lesser extent, recording media and data processing equipment. However, in our opinion this will not make any difference to the Bank of England’s decision making process regarding the base rate as inflation would have to rise far more sharply before they would even consider raising the Bank Rate. The containment of inflation simply isn’t the main priority right now. Its priority is to get the economy moving again, despite the fact inflation is more than double its target.

There was seemingly good news for home owners when Halifax announced house prices had risen by 0.3% in July, boosting the average value of a property to £163,981.

Halifax also noted that prices were 0.5% higher over the three months from May to July than in the previous three months the first time Halifax had recorded this for 14 months. These findings certainly reflect our group’s experience and the average price of a property sold has been rising for several months.
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