Recent research on pay confirms that it is the public sector and not the private sector which is being hit hardest by pay freezes and this is felt most keenly in places with a relatively high proportion of public sector workers such as Exeter.

The latest research on pay settlements from Income Data Services (IDS) has found that pay freezes have dropped to the lowest level since January 2009 but that, in the public sector, 35% of pay awards with effective dates in April resulted in pay freezes.
 
The typical pay awards in the private sector rose to 2% in the three months to the end of April 2010, up from 1.9% in the three months to March.
 
Ken Mulkearn, editor of IDS Pay Report, said:
 
“Our latest figures present strong evidence that pay freezes – one of the key features of the recession – are now fading, in the private sector at least, as the economy stabilises.
 
“However, the picture in the public sector is very different, with the number of freezes rising. The number of employees affected by freezes is likely to rise as well, since the public sector bargaining groups are relatively large.”
 
The full extent of future public sector wage settlements will not become clear until the Coalition Government’s Autumn spending review.”

Francis Clark has offices in Exeter, Plymouth, Salisbury, Taunton, Tavistock, Torquay and Truro. Francis Clark is the winner of the ‘Auditor of the Year - Mid Tier’ in the National Financial Directors’ Excellence Awards 2011, and LexisNexis Best General Tax Practice Award 2009. More information is available by logging on at our Online Information Centre