The 2009 Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings was published by the Office for National Statistics on 12 November 20091. All categories of earnings were marginally ahead of 2008, but statistics do not take into account inflation which hovered around the 1.5% mark during the period2, thereby reducing pay increases to the individual in real terms – but not taking them into a deficit. Although the full effect of the recession and the resulting pay freezes would not be included as the survey covers the period up to 22 April 2009 (and not employees who were not paid during the research period), it is a useful barometer.
The survey is based on a one per cent sample of employee jobs taken from HMRC PAYE records and relates to gross pay before tax, NI or other deductions and excludes payments in kind. It also strips out any payments relating to arrears from a different survey period or payments made as a result of a pay settlement. Most but not all of the ASHE analyses relate to full-time employees on adult rates whose earnings have not been affected by absence of any kind. The do not include earnings of those not working a full week and the survey defines full-time employees as those who work more than 30 paid hours a week or those in teaching professions working 25 paid hours or more per week.
The statistics are based on the median and not the mean, in other words the value below which 50% of the employees fall. This is to avoid skewed findings affected by the relatively small number of very high earners.
In summary:
- Weekly earnings. Median gross weekly earnings for full-time employees were £489, up 2% from £479 in 2008. The figure for all employees was £397, up 2.2% from £389 in 2008. Median male full-time earnings were £531, up £1.8%, compared with £428 for women, up 3.4%.
- Annual earnings. Median gross annual earnings for full time employees (including those whose pay was affected by absence) were £25,800, up 2.8% from 2008.
- Hourly earnings. Median gross hourly earnings, excluding overtime for full-time employees were £12.34, up 3.9% from £11.88 in 2008. Median male hourly earnings were £12.97, an increase of 3.8%, compared with £11.39% for women, which went up by 4.3%.
- Public and private sector pay. The median gross weekly pay of full-time employees in the public sector was £539 in 2009, up 3.1% from £523 in 2008. For the private sector the comparable figure was £465, up 1% from £460 in 2008.
- Earnings by age group. The distribution of median gross weekly earnings for full-time employees showed that earnings for 40 to 29-year olds were highest at £551. Median gross weekly earnings increased until employees reached this age band and steadily declined after that.
- Earnings by occupation. In April 2009 median gross weekly earning for full-time employees were highest for managers and senior officials at £713 (46% higher than weekly earnings for all employees) and lowest for sales and customer service occupations at £296 (39% lower than weekly earnings for all employees).
The ONS report on labour market statistics3 indicated that UK unemployment was rising at a much slower pace than earlier in the year, but Dr John Philpott, chief economist at the CIPD puts this down to more women in part-time jobs and a surge in the number of young people staying on in education.
He explains: ‘At such times employers who need to recruit remain wary of hiring full-time staff and it is significant that today’s ONS figures do not show an improvement in the level of job vacancies. This pattern is also normally accompanied by a high rate of involuntary part-time working – there are now almost 1 million people working part-time because they can’t find a full-time job.’
[1] http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/ashe1109.pdf
[2] http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?ID=19
[3] http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk1109.pdf