--UK May headline avg earnings up annual 4.5%
--UK adj Jun claimant count unemployment dn 12,000 from May
--UK May headline avg earnings below mkt forecasts
--UK May unadj earnings ex bonuses 5.1 pct pts, bonuses -0.8 pct pts
--UK Mar-May ILO unemployment 4.9% down vs Dec-Feb 5.2%
--UK Mar-May ILO unemployment down 82,000 on Dec-Feb
--UK Mar-May manufacturing unit labor costs up 1.4% on yr
--UK May single month avg earnings up provisional 4.5% on yr
--UK May private sector headline avg earnings up 4.4% on yr
--UK May public sector headline avg earnings up 5.3% on yr
--UK Mar-May LFS jobs up 92,000 on qtr, rate at 74.9%

London, July 18 (BridgeNews) - There was welcome news from the U.K. labor market in the latest month's figures, with a bigger-than-expected fall in unemployment and a sharper-than-forecast slowdown in earnings growth. The Office for National Statistics said the claimant count measure of unemployment dropped 12,000 in June, compared with forecasts of a fall of around 2,000, while headline average earnings growth slowed to an annual rate of 4.5% in May from 5.2% in April. The data suggests employment is still growing but pay pressures are still relatively subdued.
Whole economy earnings growth slowed to an unadjusted annual rate of just 4.3% in May but there was a pronounced downward effect from bonus payments, which cut 0.8 percentage points off the total. Excluding bonuses, which some economists consider to be a better estimate of underlying pay pressure, earnings grew at an annual rate of 5.1% in May.
Public sector pay growth outstripped private sector for the first time since June 1999. The headline rate measured 5.3% in May, the highest since 1993, pushed up by bigger awards for nurses, teachers, and police.