PAY DATA
Private sector pay deals remain at 3% - IDSPay.co.uk
The trend for wage awards in the private sector to focus on 3% is continuing into the second quarter of 2012. That’s according to the latest data from researchers at IDSPay.co.uk.
Almost half of all pay awards (48%) are at or above this level in the three months to the end of April 2012. This is a drop, however, on last month’s figures, when around 58% of deals were at 3% or above.
Meanwhile, the IDSPay.co.uk whole economy measure of pay awards (the median pay settlement) has fallen back to 2.8%. This is due to another round of public sector pay freezes taking effect in April, more than doubling the proportion of settlements resulting in a pay freeze from 8% last month to 20% this month. Of this 20%, two-thirds are in the public and voluntary sector.
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Gap between manufacturing and services
This month also saw a gap appear between the level of awards in manufacturing and production on the one hand, and private sector services on the other:
IDSPay.co.uk said: “This is due to lower pay awards in service sectors such as retail, finance and leisure, compared to higher awards in manufacturing.”
Summary of key settlement data
For the three months to the end of April 2012, based on 107 settlements covering 2.4 million employees in total, the key IDSPay.co.uk statistics are these:
A final word
‘‘Private sector pay awards are continuing in the 2.5% to 3.5% range, despite the economy slipping back into recession. After a two-year period in which wage rises trailed behind increases in the cost of living, it looks like the gap with inflation is closing, but very slowly. Recent high inflation has hit real wages hard, and is a worry for companies too. Concerns about falling living standards haven’t gone away and are feeding a debate over consumer spending and the broader economy.” - Ken Mulkearn, Editor of IDS Pay Report.
Want to know more?
IDSPay.co.uk is an online source of all the remuneration data collected by IDS, on pay settlements, pay levels and executive compensation. Visit www.IDSPay.co.uk to see a demonstration or to sign up for a free trial.
IDS Pay Report, published fortnightly, is the UK's “leading source of research and analysis on pay and benefits across the economy”.
Incomes Data Services is the “leading UK information and research service on employment issues, providing a range of publications for employers, trade unions, government departments and other agencies”. For more details visit www.incomesdata.co.uk.