LONDON (Reuters) - Britain’s jobs market showed further signs of a slowdown as employment fell and growth in wages cooled, according to official data published on Tuesday that is likely to reassure the Bank of England that inflation pressures are waning.

Provisional data provided by employers to the tax authorities showed the number of employees fell by 33,000 in April after 47,000 drop in March.

Vacancies fell further below their pre-COVID pandemic level as they dropped by 42,000 or 5.3% in the three months to April to 761,000, the Office for National Statistics said.

Average weekly earnings, excluding bonuses, rose by 5.6% in the first three months of 2025 compared with the same period last year, the slowest increase since the three months to November last year, the ONS said.

A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to regular wage growth of 5.7%.

"The broader picture continues to be of the labour market cooling," ONS Director of Economic Statistics Liz McKeown said.

The BoE is monitoring closely the inflation pressures in Britain’s labour market as it considers whether to speed up its pace of interest rate cuts.

Sterling was little changed after the data was published.