1% pay rise for UK workers

Workers in the UK received a median pay rise of one per cent, according to a new survey.

The findings from Incomes Data Services indicated the lowest median pay settlement since the survey's electronic records began, and Tony Dolphin, senior economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research, feels it is "a sign of the pressure companies are under" at present.

However, very few awards are actually at the median of one per cent and it is still the case that pay awards can be divided into main groups: those that have resulted in zero awards, or freezes, and those at two per cent or above.

A combination of a large proportion of pay freezes and the fact that April, a key month for pay reviews, had fallen out of the scope of the figures, has been cited as reasons for the fall.

The survey is supported by Industrial Relations Services which showed that around four in ten of all pay deals being settled are pay freezes.

Mr Dolphin added that while the freezes were not "good news for demand and spending", they nonetheless showed that the management skills and "measures taken in the eighties and nineties to make the labour market more flexible are working".