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.
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.’