Calls for home workers to be paid less have been labelled ‘illogical’ and ‘unfair’ by a company that has published research finding the average UK salary would be significantly higher if it had increased at the same rate as commuting costs over the past 10 years.
Software firm Factorial HR conducted research in response to the calls for lower salaries that looked at the annual increase in both the price of rail fares and the average wage (not adjusted for inflation).
The suggestion that employees working from home are less worthy of a better wage is insulting to those that have been doing so for quite some time now, and to lazily justify this with the lack of commute is foolhardy” – Bernat Farrero, Factorial HR
Analysis revealed that the price of train tickets had gone up by 44 percentage points since 2010, while the median weekly wage was only 18 percentage points greater than it was at that time.
In short, the average annual UK salary would be £6,000 higher if it increased at the same rate as rail fares in the past 10 years. The research also found that the largest increase in the average weekly wage was +3.5% (in 2018), compared with the largest annual increase in rail fares of +6.2% (in 2011).
The study was conducted in response to calls made this week for home workers to be paid less than their colleagues.
From this, it was calculated what the average UK salary would be £711 a week, as opposed to £586 if it had increased at the same rate as rail tickets, or £36,972, compared with £30,472.
Bernat Farrero, CEO of Factorial HR, said: “There is clearly a disparity between the cost of commuting and the average wage, which is why calls for remote workers to be docked wages are as unfair as they are illogical.
“Only looking at the past 10 years, and only the cost of a train ticket, we can see how the cost of commuting has grown exponentially compared to the average wage. This is even without considering the extra costs of home working, such as heating and office equipment.”
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Earlier this week an unnamed minister told newspapers: “People who have been working from home aren’t paying their commuting costs so they have had a de facto pay rise, so that is unfair on those who are going into work.
“If people aren’t going into work, they don’t deserve the terms and conditions they get if they are going into work.”
However, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has since dampened fears among civil servants that the government was serious about the idea.
In the US, Google has developed a pay calculator that lets employees see the effects of working remotely or moving offices, which could lead to some employees having their pay cut.
Farrero added: “This whole charade – with Google [in the US] considering reducing its remote workers’ pay, a minister suggesting civil servants working from home should have pay reduced, and voices in the media agreeing – is an affront to the graft put in by the UK (and the world)’s workforce over the past 17 months. The suggestion that employees working from home are less worthy of a better wage is insulting to those that have been doing so for quite some time now, and to lazily justify this with the lack of commute is foolhardy.
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“There is indeed a suggestion to be had about wages and the cost of commuting, but not the one that Google and the unnamed minister are referring to; the money the average commuter has to shell out each week, month, year, has been steadily increasing for more than a decade, while wages remain fairly stagnant, and that indeed is where the problem actually lies.”
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