74.8 per cent of all working-age people in the UK are now in work, 31.95m people. Unemployment is just 4.6 per cent, the lowest since 1975. On the surface this might indicate that people are benefiting from the economic growth of recent years. However, employment is no longer a good indicator of prosperity. In March 2008, the average basic weekly wage, excluding bonuses, was £473. The average basic weekly wage, adjusted for prices, is now £458. So almost ten years on, average wages have declined. According to the Resolution Foundation , the 2010s are on course to be the worst decade for wage growth since 1805. Employers have ruthlessly squeezed the wages of average workers. Some initially put this down to the financial crash and public sector wage restraint. Others have pointed out to the free movement of people from the EU which effectively provided employers with an abundance of low wage workers from Eastern Europe. The chart below shows UK average weekly wages from the Offic...
Writer & researcher