Pay settlements rise

Pay settlement levels continued to rise last month, while private sector pay freezes are becoming increasingly scarce, according to the Labour Research Department’s Payline database of agreements.

However, with a settlement midpoint now of 3% for the November to January period, workers are still chasing price inflation. This was 4.0% as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) or 5.1% as measured by the Retail Prices Index (RPI).

The three-month settlement midpoint of 3% applies more or less across the board (the exceptional public sector figure of over 5% is unrepresentative as Payline recorded almost no public sector deals).

The highest increases, those in the region of 5%, include a number of rises under existing long-term deals in the private sector. But, excluding those, the mid-point among new settlements effective in November, December and January is still 3.0%; almost a third of these new pay deals increased lowest basic rates by that amount.

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