OME study looks at earnings growth in pay review body occupations

A new report for the Office of Manpower Economics aims to arrive at a better understanding of how earnings growth for public sector workers covered by the pay review bodies compares with the wage movements of employees in other, similar occupations. The report presents research based on data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and the Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS), both produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The research was undertaken by Alex Bryson, Professor of Quantitative Social Sciences at the Department of Social Science, University College London, and John Forth, a Fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

Key findings

• Averaging across all 353 occupations in the UK’s Standard Occupational Classification, there was a decline of 5.8% in median real gross hourly occupational earnings between 2005 and 2015.
• The decline was steeper among non-PRB occupations than PRB occupations (6.1% compared to 3.1%).
• Among the ten largest PRB remit occupations, median real gross hourly occupational earnings fell 10.1%, on average, between 2005 and 2015.
• However, wage growth varied considerably across PRB occupations, even among occupations whose pay was set by the same PRB.

The authors conclude:

‘The degree to which earnings growth varies across occupations even within the PRB sector, and after accounting for workforce changes, is, perhaps, the biggest finding from the study. This is despite a fairly uniform public sector pay policy being applied to these groups over the latter half of the period.’

‘Wage Growth in Pay Review Body Occupations’, by Alex Bryson and John Forth, Report to the Office of Manpower Economics, June 2017 [PDF]: www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/623810/Wage_Growth_in_PRB_Occupations_-_final_report__3_.pdf