Settlements stuck at 2.5%

There’s been a lack of movement in pay settlements, but with inflation falling the average organised worker is now seeing some improvement in living standards.

The latest figures from the LRD Payline database of collective agreements show that in the three months to February the median increase was again 2.5%. RPI inflation has been below 2.5% since last August, so the average worker has seen their living standard improve.

There is little variation in the level of increases by sector, other than the public sector which returned to a more realistic 2.7%.

The rise recorded by the other main pay analyst, XpertHR, was 2.0% for February — again unchanged for a number of months. Sadly, the media multinational Thomson Reuters decided the close pay-related activities of Incomes Data Services.

The latest official statistics on Average Weekly Earnings show that in the year to February total pay, including bonuses, rose by 1.3%, marginally down on the revised rise for January of 1.4%.

The bad news in the sectoral figures came from manufacturing where there was a 0.5% decrease on a year earlier. Services showed an average rise of 1.6% — down from 1.8% — and the rise for the private sector as a whole was down to 1.5% from 1.6%.

The public sector rise was 0.9% against 0.7% the month before.

Excluding bonuses and arrears, the rises were: whole economy figure 2.2%; private sector 2.6%; public sector 1.1%; services 2.6%; manufacturing 0.0%.

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

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