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Commenting on the latest labour market statistics published today (Wednesday) by the Office for National Statistics, 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.

17 December 2014

Commenting on the latest labour market statistics published today (Wednesday) by the Office for National Statistics, 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.”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

- The estimate for the rate of earnings recovery is derived by projecting forwards an index for real earnings at the monthly rate of growth implied by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and (single month) average weekly earnings (AWE) figures. With October CPI at 1.3 per cent and AWE at 1.8 per cent, the implied monthly rate is (1.8-1.3) / 12, i.e. 0.04 per cent. While this reflects a fall in the growth of real earnings compared to last month, the fall in inflation into November suggests a wider margin around any such estimate.

- All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

- Follow the TUC on Twitter: @tucnews

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