Pay
awards have hit a two-year high, according to research by independent analyst
the Industrial Relations Services.
Latest
figures from the IRS show that pay settlements increased dramatically to 3.4 per
cent in the three months to January 2001 – a rise of 0.4 per cent from
December.
The
IRS settlement measure stands at its highest level since November 1998. Half of
all pay deals are now worth between 3 and 3.7 per cent, up from between 2.8 and
3.5 per cent in December.
At
the same time, there has been a fall in the proportion of settlements below 3
per cent, from nearly a third to just over a tenth.
"The
upturn in January deals reflects the impact of higher levels of headline
inflation in the final quarter of last year, which has fed through into rising
settlement levels in the early part of 2001," claimed the report’s author
Jeremy Baugh.
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By
Mike Broad
