to think wages and salaries are going backwards, if not static, in the private sector in average jobs?

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

Just before I went on maternity leave in the year 2000 I had a very simple, non-stressful office job in London. The salary was £25,000 pa. It suited me at the time not to push myself as I knew I wanted to be a sahm for a while, so I contented myself with that.

Today I have just seen an advert on my local Facebook. A CEO is looking for a secretary. The salary advertised is £22,000 to £24,000.

This is nearly 19 years later!

How the hell are people expected to live on salaries like this without tax credits and similar?

Meanwhile the richest 5% have got richer by 50% or whatever the ridiculous statistic is.

Vive La Revolution!

My annual pay rise has been consistently below inflation for the last 15, so in real terms my pay has gone down, except when I've had a promotion.

It does stick in my throat when I read headlines about CEO salaries and bonuses. On the other hand, I count myself lucky to have a job with reasonable hours, holidays etc. and a salary I can live on.

I read once of an idea that a CEO's salary should never be more than 10x that of the company's lowest-paid worker. I would love to see that implemented.

Same in the public sector. One part of the MoD has completely broken away from MoD main. They were recently recruiting admin staff on 15-17k! Staff on the old contracts earn between 19 and 25k.

My first admin job in the civil service paid 17k over a decade ago. And that was low pay then.

God knows how the CEOs expect people to shop in their stores and go out to eat when one in five people earn under the living wage.

As automation increases and starts on “middle class” office job roles, I don’t think the future looks rosy.

Polarbear this really irks me. Entry level jobs in Dstl are far lower than the same grade in MoD. And then the Cabinet Office doesn't pay London weighting. It's so inconsistent!

ViolentGin - yes, completely agree! Civil Service salaries are all over the place.

Yep. I’ve moved jobs three times in the past ten years with a couple of gaps for maternity leaves. My job title is more Senior now, but my salary hasn’t changed since 2011.

I’m private sector btw.

why have the rich got richer though?

I don’t think it’s that simple - perhaps the value of a secretory just isn’t the same 19 years later or whatever.

The job market demands different things.

16 yrs ago I was earning 20% more than I am now.
When I put my case to my director that the job I do is significantly not what the job description was (think the only applicable line was ‘any other duties deemed necessary’), and what the role actually was he denied what I do.......until 2 day’s later he was showing someone round and stated my job was my description.

If I was paid for my description I would be on 30% minimum more.

I agree - you hear a lot about it in the public sector but I think people do not realise it is right across the board - some salaries are going up enormously and this skews the average to make it look like wages are going up.

Most people I know have not had a wage increase in line with inflation for 10 years.

How the hell are people expected to live on salaries like this without tax credits and similar?

And the tax credits are now a legacy benefit soon to be long gone entirely. You won't qualify for much UC at all on £19k, maybe help with childcare, but that's it.

Minimum wage has gone up so retail role pay has increased. At one point, a full time retail role might have paid 12k a year and a basic office admin role 18k. These days, they both pay around 15k a year!

I don’t believe you. No one can live in London on less than a £100k wage.

YANBU, OP.

Plus things like travel costs and energy bills have gone up exponentially, meaning people have a lot less disposable income, or can't get by at all.

NU at all.

How the hell are people expected to live on salaries like this without tax credits and similar?

I am in a managerial role, earning £25k a year, DH is in a skilled manual role, also earning £25k a year. We have no tax credits or similar, 1 child, want another and also want to move house - we are in the North East and will not get the house we want on our salaries without having a huge deposit behind us which feels impossible while paying the mortgage and nursery fees etc.

@Polarbearflavour is that the same place that changed the rules to only allow you to get 10% promotion pay by any chance?

It is shit OP. Especially when you see the size of some of the bonuses those at the top get, its actually obscene how some companies see fit to pay the higher grades 5k plus in bonuses but won’t give the lower grades a proper inflationary rise. Grim times.

@MotherOfDragons90 - yes it is!

I’m also surprised when the local town centre is full of shoppers and all the restaurants and cafes are full with people queuing to get in. And I live in one of the most deprived areas in the UK - in the south west.

Is it credit cards and payday loans?

Agreed. And as wages have stagnated, employee benefits have steadily been eroded now due to the increased casualisation and outsourcing of the workforce at the lower end. There's a really interesting NYT article comparing being a janitor now to a janitor 35 years ago

www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/upshot/to-understand-rising-inequality-consider-the-janitors-at-two-top-companies-then-and-now.amp.html

This is only going to get worse as more jobs become automated. It doesn't help that universities have been churning out degrees at a hugely disproportionate rate to jobs available in many fields, meaning many people with degrees are working low-paid jobs because the competition is so fierce to get any higher up the ladder.

I was earning 40k as a London PA in the City. Down here, there are no large businesses and roles are different. A secretary/admin role pays 16-22k ish. And there aren’t many of those around!

Most admin jobs advertised are at the hospital and pay in the 17-19k bracket. Depressing.

The National Minimum Wage, whilst being good for those who were paid a lesser amount, has also been a catastrophe for a lot of other workers.

Employers used it as an excuse to pay workers on more than NMW less money for their roles. As jobs became vacant employers reduced the salary for the newly-advertised role. This had a knock-on effect on jobs further up the ladder too.

My DH works for a large global company and has had 8 salary freezes in 10 years and where he did have rises they were things like £500 per year. So, in real terms he has lost income over the decade. His employer has awarded salary increases to the lowest paid and the highest paid and none to the mid range grades. They have also changed annual bonus payments so they get, say, £500 across the board rather than being percentage-based. So again the junior workers benefit as they only pay basic rate tax. The result is a lot of people feel demoralised and as if studying for professional qualifications was pointless.

They have also developed robots and will see a future decline in the workforce as a result.

It's crazy.

My mum has recently gone back to work after almost 20 years out (SAHM to multiple kids). She used to work as a bank clerk, basic job lowest pay grade. £16k a year full time until 2000. She's now working for 10p over minimum wage in the same job, and has been applying for hundreds of receptionist/admin/banking jobs over the past year. Not even an interview. Most of them are 40 hour weeks (8am - 5pm) for 17-18k.
It's just not liveable.

Utterly mad.

Polarbearflavour for the first time, I can kind of see why people just keep whacking stuff on credit and enjoying their lives without worrying about how they'll pay it off. I actually get decent cost of living increases but we are being crippled by litigious neighbours, I'm fearful of what the future holds climate/environment wise and we don't have kids. The temptation to live for now is increasing every day, even though I know it's irresponsible.