Tag Archives: living wage

Costs and benefits of the National Living Wage

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English money

By Heather Cameron

Britain’s bosses have been urged by the government to prepare early for the introduction of the National Living Wage (NLW) in April next year.

Firms are advised to follow four simple steps:

  • know the correct rate of pay – £7.20 per hour for staff aged 25 and over
  • find out which staff are eligible for the new rate
  • update the company payroll in time for 1 April 2016
  • communicate the changes to staff as soon as possible

Support

This push coincides with a new poll revealing that 93% of bosses support the Living Wage initiative, with a majority believing it will boost productivity and retain staff.

This is supported by new research by the University of Strathclyde and the Living Wage Foundation (LWF), which uses real-life case studies and evidence from employees working for accredited Living Wage employers. It suggests that paying staff a living wage leads to many business benefits – such as staff retention, more efficient business processes, improved absenteeism and better staff performance.

Potential benefits

Many of the findings highlighted relate to research on the London Living Wage (LLW). Among these include:

  • 50.3% of employees receiving the LLW registered above average scores for psychological wellbeing, a sign of good morale, compared to just 33.9% of non-LLW employees studied
  • an average 25% reduction in staff turnover was reported for organisations moving to the LLW
  • and 70% of employers studied reported reputational benefits through increased consumer awareness of their commitment to being an ethical employer

Estimates show that 4.5 million employees will see a rise in their wages as a result of the introduction of the NLW in 2016, with a further 2.6 million gaining from spillovers. By 2020, 6 million employees are predicted to have received a pay increase.

Up to one in four workers are expected to experience a significant positive impact from the NLW. If the result is indeed a happier workforce, perhaps the knock-on effect for businesses will be improved productivity.

There will however be variation across different parts of the UK and across different households, depending on how the NLW interacts with the tax and benefit system (it should be noted that many estimates were made prior to the u-turn on welfare reform). And let’s not forget that the NLW is not for all as under-25s will not be eligible.

Costs to employers

The impact on employees and therefore employment generally, will also depend on the actions firms take to prepare for the NLW in order to mitigate costs.

Indeed, the research from Strathclyde and LWF recognises that implementing the NLW will inevitably involve initial costs to businesses and could represent an issue for some companies more than others.

According to the Federation for Small Businesses, a negative impact on business is expected by 38% of small employers, with many expected to slow their hiring and raise prices.

It has been estimated that the NLW may lead to an increase in the unemployment rate by 0.2% points in 2020; resulting in around 60,000 more people unemployed and total hours worked per week across the economy around 4 million lower.

Businesses may also look to employ those under the age of 25 who won’t be eligible for the NLW. This could particularly impact on those sectors with a high proportion of lower paid employees, such as social care – a sector that is already under financial pressure.

The roll out of the Living Wage has certainly raised concern over potential costs for councils, which are having to deal with increasing budget cuts. The Local Government Association (LGA) has estimated that the NLW could cost local authorities £1bn a year by 2020/21.

So while increasing wages for low paid workers may seem like a no-brainer in the bid to help reduce in-work poverty, the full impact on employees, employers and therefore the economy, remains uncertain. Only time will tell what the true impact of the NLW will be.

Further reading: if you liked this blog post, you might also want to read our previous blog on the Living Wage. 

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Spreading the word on the living wage

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By James Carson

Last week, Church of England bishops issued a letter calling for a new direction that they believe political life in the UK ought to take. Among the bishops’ recommendations was support for the living wage:

“It represents the basic principle that people are not commodities and that their lives cannot adapt infinitely in response to market pressures.”

It didn’t take long for the media to find flaws in the Church’s own approach to paying its staff. This week it was reported that a Church job in Canterbury was being advertised at £6.70 per hour. The living wage, calculated from the basic cost of UK life, is currently £7.85 an hour outside London.

Low pay seems likely to be one of the key issues in the general election campaign, so a new report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) is especially timely.

Low pay is endemic

The report describes low pay as “endemic” in the UK labour market, noting that more than one in five workers in the UK experience low pay, a proportion that has changed little in more than 25 years.

Among the research findings:

  • More than a third of low-paid workers (38.4%) experience a period of worklessness over a four year period;
  • Being low paid increases the probability of experiencing a period of worklessness by around 10%, after accounting for a host of individual, family-level and employment characteristics;
  • Those low-paid workers on temporary contracts, and those with work-limiting health conditions or disabilities, are the most likely to experience a spell of worklessness over a four-year period.

The authors of the report express concern that when many of those workless individuals who were formerly low paid return to employment, it is to a similarly low level of earnings.

“This low-pay, no-pay cycle means many find it difficult to escape low living standards and advance in the world of work.”

In addition, the JRF report highlights  the significant burden on the state of having large numbers of low-paid workers alternating between employment and worklessness, and suggests that significant fiscal savings could be made if job security for those in low-paid positions was strengthened.

While the paper does not propose any specific policy recommendations to tackle the employment insecurity of low-paid work, the authors suggest that several areas of policy offer potential for co-ordinated solutions to this problem, including:

  • extending access to skills and training to those who are in work and lack qualifications;
  • limiting the burden of unplanned absence from work to employers through the targeted re-introduction of schemes such as statutory sick pay recovery;
  • providing support alongside incentives for low-paid workers to progress through in-work conditionality within Universal Credit.

The movement to encourage more employers to pay the living wage has picked up pace in recent months. Organisations such as Citizens UK and the Living Wage Foundation have campaigned to encourage more employers to pay the living wage. Even so, by the end of 2014, only 60,000 people in the UK were covered by this pay rise, with none of the big supermarkets or large care firms involved. Some local authorities, however, including Glasgow, Cardiff, Birmingham, Newcastle and the Greater London Authority, have adopted the living wage.

As the JRF report underlines, paying the living wage to employees results in reduced welfare benefits and extra taxes. Which means that, whether the employer is Tesco or the Archbishop of Canterbury, the living wage can give people basic rights and a sense of dignity in work, while making good economic sense for the nation’s coffers.

Further Reading

We’ve previosuly blogged on the living wage and addressing the causes of in-work poverty.

Other resources which you may find interesting (some may only be available to Idox Information Service members):

Wealth: having it all and wanting more

The benefits of tackling worklessness and low pay

Ten years of the GLA’s London Living Wage

Bare minimum is not enough (living wage)

Low pay Britain 2014

Addressing the causes of in-work poverty

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Image from Flickr user MoB68, licensed for reuse under Creative Commons License

Image from Flickr user MoB68, licensed for reuse under Creative Commons License

By Donna Gardiner

This week is Living Wage Week and the issue of workers struggling to make ends meet has been in the news again. Back on 23rd September 2014, I attended an event held by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health (GCPH) on the changing nature of work and in-work poverty in the UK, with a specific focus on Glasgow.

Over 100 delegates from across the public, private and voluntary sectors came together to learn about the latest research findings, take part in round table discussions and contribute to a panel debate on how to address the causes of in-work poverty. Speakers included experts on poverty from the Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council, Ipsos MORI, the Employment Research Institute at Napier University and the Glasgow Centre for Population Health.

The day began with a presentation by Jill Morton, from the Communities and Analytical Services division of the Scottish Government. Jill provided an overview of the Scottish Government’s policy commitments to tackle poverty, and highlighted recent statistics regarding the incidence of poverty in Scotland.

She reported that, in Scotland in 2012/13 (the most recent data available), 16% of people, and one in five children, were living in poverty.

Jill noted that whilst employment was the best route out of poverty, it was no longer a safeguard against poverty as over half of all working age adults in poverty in Scotland were from households in which at least one person was in employment. Six in ten children in poverty were also from working households. Jill concluded that for poverty to decline, lower income households must have access to quality and sustainable employment.

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Is it a happy birthday for National Minimum Wage?

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wage-packet

by Donna Gardiner

Today, (Tuesday, 1st April), is the 15th anniversary of the introduction of the National Minimum Wage in the UK.  The anniversary occurs during the second week of the Trade Union Congress’ (TUCs’) ‘Fair Pay Fortnight’, which aims to raise awareness of the problem associated with low pay, in-work poverty and the increasing cost of living in the UK. Continue reading →