18 December 2014

After six long years weekly earnings are finally ahead of Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation, according to the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures.

Wages for October grew most in the private sector (2.2%), which makes up 82% of jobs (and growing, thanks to the Tory appetite for privatisation), compared to 1.3% inflation in the same month. Appallingly, and unsurprisingly, finance and business services saw the fastest wage growth, at 3%.

Wage growth in the public sector remains well behind inflation at a meagre 0.5%.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Today’s figures show some long overdue improvements, but at this rate it will take over a decade to recover the real value of people’s earnings. And there is a very long way to go to deal with the problem of so many jobs being insecure, short hours, or on zero hour contracts.

“We need to make sure that nobody is left behind in the recovery, so today’s increase in long-term unemployment for young people is a growing concern.”