Weekly earnings across the UK rose by 2.9% between April 2023 and April 2024 when adjusted for inflation.
New Office for National Statistics figures show that the median weekly wage for full-time employees was £728.
Full-time employees increased for all major occupational groups, with the largest growth reported in lower paid occupations such as in “caring and leisure” and “sales and customer service occupations” categories, which both increased by 7.7% (unadjusted) on the previous year.
“Managers, directors and senior officials” also saw a large increase (7.6%) in median gross weekly earnings. The smallest increase was seen in “professional occupations” (5%).
Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were £37,430 in April 2024, compared with £35,004 in April 2023, an increase of 6.9%.
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Full-time employees’ median hourly earnings excluding overtime were £18.64 an hour in April 2024, compared with £17.52 in 2023 (an increase of 6.4%).
The proportion of low-paid employee jobs fell to 3.4% in April 2024 from 9.8% in April 2023, the lowest since the series began in 1997, while the proportion of high-paid employee jobs fell 0.7 percentage points on the year to 22.7% in April 2024; both declines are record lows, said the ONS.
The highest proportion of low-paid jobs in April 2024 worked in elementary occupations (12.9%) and the hospitality industry (17%). Elementary occupations include jobs such as cleaners or delivery drivers. Also, the employees more likely to be in low-paid jobs were the young (36.1% of employees aged 16 to 21 were in low pay) and women.
The TUC used the figures to criticise previous Conservative governments, arguing that with real average annual wage growth of just 0.3% from 2010 to 2024 was the worst period of pay growth than for any other period of government since the 1920s.
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Britain’s lack of pay growth over the past 15 years is explained by a decline in productivity. In an online blog IFS research economist Nick Ridpath stated that in the 35 years before 2008, productivity doubled – but in the 15 years since, it had only risen by 5%. “This stagnation became known as the productivity puzzle, and has prompted a lot of debate among economists,” he said, but lack of investment was the most likely cause.
Ridpath confirmed that compared with the pre-pandemic era, the UK economy was performing the worst of the G7 wealthiest democracies. He cited Brexit and the Ukraine conflict as contributory causes but also questioned the furlough scheme, arguing that increasing the generosity of unemployment pay – as the US did – may have helped the economy recover from the pandemic quicker.
This was because the post-Covid economy had different employment patterns and priorities, whereas paying businesses to keep workers in their pre-Covid jobs may not be as productive.
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