One in four jobs outside of London now pays less than the Living Wage

Jobs paying below the Living Wage have proliferated around the country

 

According to new data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the proportion of jobs outside London paying less than the Living Wage has increased to almost one-in-four. Jobs paying below the Living Wage have proliferated around the country.

Between April 2008 and April 2010, the proportion of jobs paid less than the Living Wage in London remained stable at around 13 per cent, but it had risen to 19 per cent by April 2014.

There are only three years of estimates available for the rest of the UK, but the ONS says that the proportion of employee jobs paid less than the Living Wage rose from 21 per cent in April 2012 to 23 per cent in April 2014.

Northern Ireland had the highest proportion of jobs paying less than the Living Wage at 29 per cent. In the South-East of England, London and Scotland, 19 per cent of jobs paid less than the Living Wage.

Across the UK in 2014, there were about 6 million jobs paying less than the Living Wage, of which over half were part-time jobs. Some industries stand out. For example, in accommodation and food services in 2014, an estimated 65 per cent of employee jobs paid less than the Living Wage in London and 70 per cent in the rest of the UK.

55 per cent of London retail jobs paid less than the Living Wage, and 59 per cent of retail jobs in the rest of the UK. Other industries also have high proportions of jobs paying below the Living Wage – for example, administrative and support services, arts, entertainment and recreation, and agriculture, forestry and fishing all had over one-third of jobs paying below the Living Wage in 2014.

Although there have been increases in both men and women earning below the Living Wage, the increases have been greater for female than for male jobs.

In 2014, the gap between the proportion of male and female jobs below the Living Wage was 6 percentage points in London and 11 percentage points in the rest of the UK.

This works out as 3.6 million female employee jobs below the living wage in the UK in 2014, compared with 2.3 million male employee jobs.

The Conservative government has repeatedly claimed that it will ‘make work pay’, as it tries to brand itself as the new party of working people. The soaring number of people being paid below the hourly rate necessary to meet basic living standards is difficult to square with this claim.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, commented on the figures:

“The government’s Trade Union Bill will make it even harder for people to get fair wages. It will shift the balance of power in the workplace towards employers, making it harder to bring poverty-pay bosses to the negotiating table.

“If the government really wanted to deliver fairer pay it would be working with trade unions not against them.”

Ruby Stockham is a staff writer at Left Foot Forward

8 Responses to “One in four jobs outside of London now pays less than the Living Wage”

  1. David Davies

    £7.85 is an hourly rate NOT a living wage. £7.85 x 0 = £0.

    Even £7,85 x 40 = £314/week before tax/NI, and I would like to see the likes of IDS live off that.

  2. andagain

    Then after the Living Wage is required, I suppose a lot of people will be thrown out of work. Just what everyone wants.

  3. Luke Blakey

    why? Wages are based on potential productivity and efficiency and actual productivity (which produce sales, which fund wages), among other market factors. Entrepreneurial talent and focus is what drives a economy forward. Directed Investments such as higher wages have to lead to higher returns for businesses, otherwise capitalism wouldn’t work.

  4. andagain

    Wages are based on potential productivity and efficiency and actual productivity

    If that is true of the people who earn less than the living wage, then it will not pay to hire them, if you are required to pay no less than the living wage. So requiring people to pay a Living Wage higher than the wages of a quarter of the population in work would lead to a lot of those people being laid off.

    Paying higher wages is an investment only if it allows you to hire better employees than your current ones. Which means you no longer need the current ones.

  5. Luke Blakey

    ?

    I take it you have never worked for a SME or for yourself andagain. The REAL economy isn’t like unemployment, or attending primary school, in Jobs people have managers, and businesses have owners: people who seek higher profits, turnover and security and make continual changes big, small, hard and easy to achieve it, day in, day out. Hard work today laid down on the hardwork of yesterday, utilised to create abetter more profitable present in the future.

    “Which means you no longer need the current ones.” Not quite sure where you get that from, inertia is a big driver in life, and recruitment is a big undertaking for any concern, big or small. Investing in people and processes is a key driver in efficiency. On the whole easier just to work better in the day to day, rather than rely on blue sky thinking, babies born walking and talking mandarin or a super race of peaceful aliens to come along and solve all problems.

    Entreprenuralism does exist and is a source of great innovation and progress. Stalinist determinism is theory. It doesn’t work.

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