Real-term rises despite dip in September

The overall settlement figure shows a dip in September.

The latest figures from the LRD Payline database of collective agreements show that in the three months to September the midpoint (median) increase for all agreements was down to 2.2% from the revised figure of 2.3% for August.

Nevertheless, with inflation as measured by the Retail Prices Index rising by 0.8% in September, the median rise was 1.4 percentage points better in real terms, against 1.2 percentage points in August.

The private sector outperformed the overall median rise with a 2.4% median rise, but for the public sector the rise was cut to 1.3% from 2.5%. Non-manual workers also saw a tidy cut, with a rise of only 2.0% against the August rise of 2.4%

The latest official statistics on Average Weekly Earnings show that in the year to August total pay, including bonuses, rose by 3.1%, down from the revised figure of a 3.6% rise for July.

The rise in manufacturing sector remained at 1.8%, while services posted a healthy rise of 3.1%, although this was down from 3.7% the previous month.

The rise for the private sector was down from 4.3% in August to 3.5%. The public sector, including financial services, saw a marginal improvement with a rise of 1.2% against the previous month’s 1.0% rise.

The monthly rises for regular pay, excluding bonuses, were: whole economy 2.5%; private sector 2.9%; public sector 1.1%; services 2.4%; and manufacturing 1.5%.

www.lrd.org.uk/index.php?pagid=18

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/cpi/consumer-price-indices/september-2015/index.html

www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/october-2015/dataset--earnings.html