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Poor Pay Packs Punch In England's East

Image by Ben Kerckx Pixabay
29 May 2019 | Updated 30 May 2019
 

441,950 East Of England residents in employment earned less than the real living wage of £9.00 per hour in the year to April 2018 a new GMB study has shown.

The figure represents is 18% of all East of England residents in employment. Some 68% of the residents in jobs paying less than a real living wage were in part time jobs.

GMB London obtained the statistics from official data for earnings and hours published by the Office for National statistics.

The median earnings in full time and part time employment in the year to end April 2018 was £13.39 per hour.

 

Peterborough

The area with the highest number of residents in jobs earning less than a real out of London living wage of £9.00 per hour, as set by the Living Wage Foundation, is Peterborough which has 25,200. That is 30% of jobs in the area earning less than a living wage. 35% of those part-time workers.

Next in the table was Colchester, which has 18,750 residents earning less than a living wage, which is 25% of jobs, 55% of which were part time jobs. Next is Ipswich which has 18,000 residents earning less than £9.00 per hour, which is 30% of all jobs, with 42% of those part-time jobs. Then Huntingdonshire, which has 17,000 residents not earning a living wage (20% of jobs, 47% of which are part-time); King’s Lynn and West Norfolk which has 16,500 (30% of jobs, 41% of which are part-time), Norwich with 16,500 (30% of jobs, 39% of which are part-time); and Luton with 16,000 (20% of jobs, 58% of which are part-time workers).

Warren Kenny, GMB London Regional Secretary said: "The figures show that there were 441,950 East of England residents in jobs that paid below a living wage.

 "There is a very high proportion of working families struggling to make ends meet every day.

"Contractors of outsourced public sector jobs should be required to offer a living wage to all workers doing these jobs.

"The law allows employers impunity to deny the legal rights of lower paid workers to combine into trades unions to force collective bargaining to get a better deal at work. This is perverse and should be changed."

Picture: A huge number of workers living in the East Of England are not earning the real living wage. Image by Ben Kerckx Pixabay

Article written by Brian Shillibeer | Published 29 May 2019

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