Manufacturing and manual pay falls back

New figures from LRD’s Payline database show little change in the level of settlements. The median increase for the three months to April remains at 3.0%, as does the median for the pay round since August 2005.

The only variations from the 3.0% median are among settlements covering manual workers and the manufacturing sector; in both cases, the three-monthly medians have fallen to 2.7%, although the medians for the entire pay round to date remain at 3.0% in both cases.

The median pay rise among agreements for the 12 months to March fell slightly, also to 3.0%, but the figure weighted by workers covered remained at 4.0%.

Inflation

Whichever measure is used, inflation increased in the 12 months to April: growth in the retail prices index (RPI) is now 2.6%, up from 2.4% in the year to March, while the RPI excluding mortgage interest payments rose from 2.1% to 2.4% and the consumer prices index saw an increase from 1.8% to 2.0%.

Earnings

Average earnings grew by 4.5% in the year to March, a slower rate than the revised figure of 5.1% for the year to February. The private sector remained just ahead of the public sector, and services overtook manufacturing for the first time in almost a year.

The figures above are including bonuses; if bonuses are excluded, earnings for the year to March rose by 3.7% on average.