Private sector pay deals remain at 3% - IDSPay.co.uk

PAY DATA

Private sector pay deals remain at 3% - IDSPay.co.uk

Pay awards in the private sector remain at 3% in the three months to May 2012, according to the latest data from IDSPay.co.uk. But settlements for the whole economy have continued to slip back, and now stand at 2.5%, compared with 2.8% in the three months to April.

IDSPay.co.uk says: “Wage freezes in the public and voluntary sector remain major contributing factors to this decrease, with around a fifth of settlements overall resulting in a pay freeze.”

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Manufacturers agree higher pay awards

Within the private sector, pay deals in manufacturing continue to outstrip those in the service sector. The median pay award in manufacturing was 3% in the three months to May, the same as in the previous month, while the median settlement for private sector services rose 0.1% to 2.6%.

The IDSPay.co.uk researchers found even greater variations across individual sub-sectors:

• chemicals and pharmaceuticals manufacturers - 3.4% (median pay award)
• vehicle and component manufacturers - 3%
• retail and service sector - 3%
• retail staff at high-street banks - 2.5%.

Summary of key settlement data

For the three months to the end of May 2012, based on 131 settlements covering 2.4 million employees in total, the key IDSPay.co.uk statistics are these:

• Whole economy median: 2.5%
• Whole economy average: 2.4%
• Whole economy inter-quartile range: 1.5% to 3.2%
• Private sector median: 3.0%
• Manufacturing and production median: 3.0%
• Private services median: 2.6%
• Public sector median: 0%

A final word

"The recent sharp fall in RPI inflation, from 3.5% to 3.1%, reduces the gap between median pay awards in the private sector and the generally-accepted measure of the cost of living to just 0.1%. If private sector pay settlements remain at current levels, and inflation falls further, then the squeeze on workers’ incomes, which began in 2008, will have been loosened significantly. But public sector workers will continue to feel the effects of extremely tight pay restraint." - 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.