PAY DATA
Pay awards stuck at 2% in the second quarter of the year, says XpertHR
Pay rises “remain stubbornly low, at 2% - well below the pre-recession norm of 3% to 3.5%”. That’s the main message to emerge from the latest analysis of settlement trends, covering the three months to the end of June 2013, by XpertHR.
XpertHR says:
“When compared against inflation on the retail prices index (RPI) measure (the most common inflation benchmark for pay setters), pay awards are sitting 1.3 percentage points below the level of inflation. Although RPI is forecast to fall slightly in the second half of the year, pay awards are not expected to reach higher than 2.5% over the year as a whole.”
Meanwhile, the proportion of pay awards resulting in a pay freeze remains at around one in ten (11%).
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Key pay statistics
XpertHR recorded details of 345 pay awards effective in the three months to the end of June 2013, covering more than 2.4 million employees. Of these, 269 provide an identifiable increase in the lowest adult rate of pay, and form the sample for the main analysis. The median figures are as follows:
A final word
"While RPI inflation rose in June, the level of pay awards has remained static at 2%. Our findings show that employers are maintaining a cautious approach to pay setting - something that we expect to continue through to the year end." - Sheila Attwood, XpertHR Pay and Benefits editor.
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The pay award statistics are based on the “largest sample of pay deals collected in the UK – every year XpertHR collects details of in excess of 1,600 pay settlements”.
XpertHR is the “UK's most comprehensive online source of legal compliance, good practice and benchmarking information made available to HR professionals as a single subscription service.” For more information visit www.xperthr.co.uk.