UK workers saw their wage rises wiped out by surging inflation late last year, official figures show.

Weekly earnings – excluding bonuses – rose by 3.8% in the three months to November compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

But with inflation climbing to a ten-year high, the rise was cut to zero in real terms, the ONS said.

For November alone, workers suffered a real terms pay cut of 1% – the first such fall since July 2020.

But the figures also showed more signs of falling unemployment, which dropped from 4.2% to 4.1%.

They also revealed that in December, the number of workers on UK payrolls climbed by 184,000 to 29.5 million – now 409,000 above pre-pandemic levels in February 2020.