UK ILO unemployment rate falls to 4.7% in three months to August, vs 4.9% expected

The surprise is in the composition as much as the headline: employment growth of 102,000 against a forecast near zero suggests hiring held up better than the consensus assumed, not merely that fewer people were counted as unemployed. That matters for the Bank of England's read on labour-market slack, since a tighter-than-expected jobs picture complicates the case for easing. Whether the gap between the ILO rate and the payrolls-style employment gain persists in later revisions is the open question.