Pressure on pay, prices and properties

How families were faring in October 2023

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Two years into the cost of living crisis, inflation has finally turned a corner. The headline rate of CPI inflation has fallen from its October 2022 peak of 11.1 per cent to 4.6 per cent in October 2023, and the Prime Minister has been able to say that his target of halving inflation in 2023 … Continued

Labour Market Outlook Q4 2023

What’s happening to pay growth?

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Over the course of 2023, the labour market has been gradually cooling on most measures. Even ignoring data from the Labour Force Survey that has recently been called into question, vacancies have been falling for 16 consecutive months and growth in payrolled employment has slowed. But nominal wage growth has remained resilient – even, since … Continued

Giving with one hand …

Exploring the impact of minimum wage uprating in 2024 on living standards

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At this year’s Conservative Party Conference, the Chancellor announced that the minimum wage would rise to at least £11 next year, up from its current rate of £10.42. But he may have under-promised. Using the standard uprating methodology, we estimate that the new adult-rate minimum wage could be as high as £11.46 in April 2024 … Continued

Wages are flatlining

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This Thursday, the Bank of England (BoE)’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meets. Discussion of whether the central bank has one final rate rise in it before pausing have focused on whether the Bank’s hand will be stayed by the instability we are seeing playing out in the banking sector from Silicon Valley to Switzerland (in … Continued

Labour Market Outlook Q1 2022

How should we interpret strong nominal earnings growth?

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In the first months of 2022, the labour market continued to tighten, with no sign of weakening in the aftermath of the JRS. Unemployment has fallen further, and stood at an almost-record low of 3.9 per cent in the three months to January 2022 – and although the Bank of England is concerned about unemployment … Continued

Ventures
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Low pay
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Pay

Workertech and low pay

An overview of research on low-paid workers in the UK

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This paper summarises Resolution Foundation research on low-paid workers and their experiences of work and the labour market. These are the workers that we are trying to reach with Resolution Ventures and the Workertech Partnership.

Labour Market Outlook Q2 2021

Q2 2021

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As Covid-19 restrictions begin to ease and more sectors begin to reopen, there are positive signs of recovery in the labour market. The number of payrolled employees has begun to increase (although it is still 700,000 lower than it was in early 2020); furlough rates are falling; and vacancies have recovered to pre-crisis levels. Despite … Continued

Earnings Outlook Q1 2021

Earnings in the Covid-19 crisis

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The UK has spent the first quarter of 2021 under renewed restrictions to slow the spread of Covid-19. As the third England-wide lockdown began in January, many businesses were forced to close once again, and the number of jobs furloughed through the Job Retention Scheme (JRS) rose to 4.8 million. There is growing light at … Continued

Earnings Outlook Q4 2020

Public sector pay

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As we come to the end of a year like no other, the outlook for the labour market remains mixed. At the beginning of this month, the second national lockdown came to an end, non-essential retail and hospitality businesses (in most of the country) were allowed to reopen, and recent weeks have brought official approval … Continued

Covid-19
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Labour Market Outlook
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Pay

Earnings Outlook Q1 2020

What we know about how employee earnings have fared in the current crisis

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Since we last produced an Earnings Outlook (at the end of March) some things have become clearer. The scale of the impact of the current crisis is as big as was feared. This was already apparent then from the soaring claims for Universal Credit, but has since been confirmed by the 300-year-record fall in GDP, … Continued

Covid-19
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Low pay
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Pay

What happens after the clapping finishes?

The pay, terms and conditions we choose for our care workers

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The nation has rightly come together in the current crisis to express support for our care workers. But how do we normally treat the social care workforce? Due to both long-standing and nearer-term decisions and trends, frontline care workers are: underpaid, with around half earning less than the real Living Wage; particularly vulnerable to being … Continued

Covid-19
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Low pay
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Labour market
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Pay
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Skills
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Migration

Crystal balls vs rear-view mirrors

The UK labour market after coronavirus

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Summary Sudden and significant hits to the UK labour market in recent weeks have shown that this will be a jobs recession. The focus has rightly been on how to respond to the huge numbers of people losing work, but policy makers and pundits are also beginning to ask what this crisis could mean for … Continued

Earnings Outlook Q4 2019

How should minimum wage policy respond to the current economic crisis?

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Usually in the Earnings Outlook we summarise the latest developments in pay and employment and use these to look forwards, with the trends moving slowly enough that the lag in our data is not too much of a problem. But with so much having changed so quickly, our normal indicators now serve as a guide … Continued

Working hard(ship)

An exploration of poverty, work and tenure

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This report explores the nexus between poverty, work and housing, and adds to our knowledge of the topic in two distinctive ways. First, we look at in-work poverty not just as a static but also a dynamic condition. Second, we explore the intersection between housing tenure and in-work poverty.

Dead-end relationship?

Exploring the link between productivity and workers’ living standards

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Summary The strength of the relationship between productivity growth and median pay growth – and what it means for the way in which the gains from economic growth are shared across the workforce – has been questioned in recent years, with evidence of a ‘decoupling’ of the two across a number of advanced economies. Such … Continued

Ain’t no minimum high enough

Minimum wage policy in the 2019 General Election

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Summary Minimum wage increases since 2015 delivered a £3bn pay boost to low-paid workers last year – highlighting the benefits of cross-party consensus over a more ambitious wage floor. Both main parties are right to propose plans for an even higher wage floor, but should proceed carefully, and be prepared to change course if needed. … Continued

More than we bargain for

Learning from new debates on how institutions can improve worker pay and security in Anglo-Saxon economies

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The UK’s tight labour market is delivering improvements for many, but big challenges remain that current policies and debates aren’t yet rising to meet. The UK can learn from emerging discussions and policy innovations in other Anglo-Saxon economies.

Feel poor, work more

Explaining the UK’s record employment

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There is no bigger change to our economy over the past decade than the employment boom. We argue that this has been driven by the deep post-crisis income squeeze. This pushed up labour supply via more workers, and a pause in the long-term decline in working hours.

Follow the money

Exploring the link between UK growth and workers’ pay packets

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This briefing note unpicks the relationship between productivity and pay growth, looking at a variety of factors that influence pay growth for different groups of employees in the UK – from trends in the labour share to terms of trade movements, and from the role of employer pension contributions to the impact of changes in working patterns.

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