Brits' pay packets have been slashed by £950 after a decade of Tory public sector pay cuts, a union reveals today.
While most OECD countries have delivered significant pay growth to their workers since the financial crisis, real wages in the UK have fallen.
The Trades Union Congress has revealed we lag behind 27 OECD countries.
Average annual pay growth in the UK has been -0.2% since 2007, and it is among just seven out of 33 OECD countries where real pay growth since 2007 is negative.
The highest rates of annual real pay growth since 2007 have been in the Baltic states, Lithuania (3.2%), Latvia (2.8%), and Estonia (2.5%), followed by Poland (2.5%) and Slovakia (2.0%), said the TUC.
If the UK had kept pace with the OECD average since 2007, the typical UK worker’s pay packet would be worth £4,000 more today. General secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Over the last decade, workers in most of the world got a pay rise, but in the UK wages are now worth less than they were before the financial crisis.
“Over the last 12 years, Conservative ministers chose to impose austerity, cut public sector pay, and attack workers’ rights to bargain for fair pay through their trade unions.
“Now these years of weak pay growth have left millions of working families badly exposed to soaring bills and prices. Everything’s going up – but wages.
“Britain needs a pay rise. The Chancellor must put higher wages at the heart of his Spring Statement, and ministers must get unions and employers around the table to negotiate binding fair pay agreements in every sector of the economy to get wages rising.”
Full list of 28 countries with higher real pay than the UK (%)
- Lithuania 3.2
- Latvia 2.8
- Estonia 2.5
- Poland 2.5
- Slovak Republic 2.0
- Sweden 1.6
- Slovenia 1.4
- Czech Republic 1.4
- Hungary 1.3
- Norway 1.1
- Israel 1.1
- Germany 1.0
- Korea 1.0
- Denmark 0.9
- United States 0.9
- Finland 0.7
- Ireland 0.7
- Canada - 0.6
- Iceland - 0.5
- France - 0.5
- Luxembourg - 0.4
- Australia 0.4
- Switzerland 0.4
- Portugal 0.4
- Austria 0.3
- Netherlands 0.1
- Spain. -0.1
- Belgium -0.1
- United Kingdom -0.2
