The OBR figures released today for the Autumn Statement showed lower economic growth translating into lower wage growth for the next four years. On top of this, weaker sterling has translated into significantly higher inflation, especially in 2017. For…Read more…
What’s happening to earnings?
This is one of those ‘one chart says it all’ posts. Yesterday I was too busy looking at the regular labour market figures from the Office for National Statistics to notice they’d also published a Supplementary Analysis of Average Weekly Earnings. It’s well worth a read, and…Read more…
Why are the self-employed included in employment statistics, but excluded from earnings figures?
There are many ways to raise an average. For example here are two ways to raise Average Earnings: Have more people on high pay Have fewer people on low pay And here are two ways of having fewer people on lower pay: Pay the low paid more Just ignore them The Average Weekly Earnings (AWE)…
The…Read more…
What’s happening to pay?
Bringing back to real pay growth is a necessary condition for achieving sustained and balanced economic growth that gives people at work both a fair reward and the spending power necessary to keep business growing. CPI inflation is currently at zero, which at least gives some employees a temporary…Read more…
An increasingly macroeconomic perspective on wages: The Resolution Foundation on the earnings crisis
Review of Securing a pay rise: the path back to shared wage growth, Edited by Gavin Kelly and Conor D’Arcy, The Resolution Foundation This collection of essays is a very valuable overview of progressive opinion on the earnings crisis, a must read for those engaged in any aspects of the debate. Some…Read more…
Young people and the jobs recovery
I have a post at Left Foot Forward, looking at today’s employment statistics. While the employment recovery is going well, young people seem to be the last to benefit from it, with the number of unemployed under-25s actually having gone up a little. The other weak point is pay –…Read more…