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BRITISH workers are facing one of the biggest falls in their real term wages in decades as the record high inflation outpaced the pay rises, showed the latest labor market data on Tuesday.
The growth in employees’ average total pay, which includes bonuses, was 6.2 percent, while the regular pay, excluding bonuses, grew 4,3 percent in the period March to May, said the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
But after taking inflation into account, regular pay fell by 2,8 percent – the biggest fall since records began in 2001, and the total pay also fell by 0,9 percent, read the figures.
This is the sixth monthly drop in a row in real-time regular pay, according to ONS data.
The country’s inflation rose by 9,1 percent in May, up from 9 percent in April, which was a 40-year high and is expected to rise further in the coming months, according to statistics.
The Bank of England, Britain’s central bank, has warned that inflation could reach 11 percent in October this year.
There is a growing divide in wages between the public and private sectors. Average total pay growth for the private sector was 7.2 percent in the three months to May, while for the public sector it was only 1.5 percent, said the data.
“Latest ONS stats show pay inequality continuing to rise,” tweeted Xiaowei Xu, senior economist at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a thinktank, citing that the top 1 percent of earners have enjoyed above-inflation pay rises while the bottom 10 percent have seen their real pay declined by 3 percent.
In the meantime, the ONS data for March to May showed that over the quarter, Britain’s employment rate grew by 0,4 percentage points on the quarter to 75,9 percent and the unemployment rate decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 3,8 percent, said the ONS.
David Freeman, head of labor market and household statistics from the ONS, said the figures suggested a “mixed picture” for the British labor market. – Xinhua
Online Reporter