To think that wages have gone down A LOT in the past 20 years or so

[Poetrypatty]

I'm looking at some roles where the amount offered is probably what would have been offered for that job, or possibly even less, than what you'd have got paid in about 1999. And that's often for graduates where you wouldn't have needed a degree back then and you do now. That's not even taking into account inflation or house prices.

I'm talking started and mid level office roles in particular rather than NMW jobs. I do think at the higher end wages have gone up, managers etc. For those who are old enough to remember, AIBU?

Wages are higher but in real terms are slightly lower. At the very low end I think they've risen, the minimum wage being the main thing, but lower-middle has definitely stagnated.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious, the mass immigration of cheap labour from the EU, the financial crash, the pandemic and low inflation. Employers pay the minimum they can get away with, if there is a surplus of labour then there's no need to increase wages.

The only positive over the last 20 years is that now annual leave doesn't include bank holidays, when I started work I got 12 days per year plus 8 bank holidays, now it has to be 20 + 8.

Yes, it’s depressing. Last time I moved house I found the job description from a gap year job I’d applied for. Only needed GCSEs, it was working on reception with some light admin. £18k in 2000. Admittedly this was a prestigious London business, so a good salary at the time.

The other week I applied for a job that required a degree plus a few years of experience. Remote job but pretty stressful, would need to be on call quite a bit to do emergency jobs. £18k.

Obviously I didn’t go for the latter as it would have been a pay cut, but I couldn’t believe that was the salary. I freelance at the moment and rates for that have just been completely stagnant for years. It’s a race to the bottom. It’s so depressing.

There's an inflation calculator online you can use to compare old salaries to now.

I've found payslips from my parents and grandparents (skilled non graduate jobs) and they paid so much better than my 2 degree needed job!

An employer I used to work for pays £23k now for the same role as in 2004.

In 2002 £17k was what most new graduate type jobs were going for.

Now if you are lucky they are £21k.

In 99 the 19yo ft manager in a fast food chain I knew bought a flat in a naice area. Now you'd need a £60k salary to get the income multiples for the same (not even including the deposits!).

Like the majority of today's woes, this all stems from the neoliberal policies of New Labour. Somehow they managed to be even worse for workers than the Tories.

In 2002 I was a retail manager on a salary of £24500 pa.
The rent for our 2 bed house was £750 pcm.

My old job is being advertised at the moment offering a salary of £25000 pa. The rent for the house now would be £2200 - £2400 pcm

That extra £500 a year would have to stretch a long way

Not sure all the blame can be placed at Labour's door since we've had a Tory government for the last 11 years I wish Labour would come up with policies to fix this if they ever got in power though.

That example is really quite shocking isn't it nancy75 The actual level of peoples quality of life has gone down so drastically. It must have knock on effects of mental health because life is far more difficult now than 20 years ago just from a practical cost of living point of view for young people.

*poorer mental health

Thanks @onlychildhamster that's interesting

As well as wage stagnation, I also think jobs are getting harder/higher skills expected in same role. I see that a lot in large corporates: they get rid of staff with 15+ years experience, change the competency levels so the next layer down are doing the old jobs (but at junior grade/pay)

Another Big 4 accountant here. When I started I'm 2008 I was on £27,500. Graduates 13 years later are still starting at the same level of pay.

So is it just the lawyers, bankers and management consultants who expect to start at 50kplus? I would have thought accountants would too....

It's crazy looking at these figures - when compared to the fact that so many people on mumsnet earn 6figures plus and in my part of London - we were the only ones who qualified for 30hrs free childcare - all other families had at least one if not both parents earning 100,000 and above

Law is very diverse. Yes big city firms pay well. But lots of solicitors in small and high street firms in North West are on £30-40,000 even with years of experience and usually no benefits only ssp, basic maternity etc. My salary hasn’t changed for 15 years.
In most firms you’ll start out as a graduate paralegal on NMW and if you are lucky be one of the few who make it through to qualified.
People assume law pays well but it often doesn’t.

@RandomLondoner
The reason I say tax credits cause salaries to reduce is that they allow someone to take a low paying job knowing it will get topped up a bit more. If before the wage was too low to pay for their needs they wouldn’t have done it and the employer would have offered a higher salary to attract them. The tax credit therefore allows an employer to reduce the salaries they offer and yet still get takers for them.
If the entry level jobs are now at a lower rate, the supervisor role for them can be at a lower rate as usually comes from promoting a lower employee who sees the increase as a benefit, but is still lower than it should be or used to be …. And so on.

Basically it’s like giving bad employers free cash to pay their employees less and thereby manipulating the market. By making something cheaper (an employee) it changes the dynamics in the long term so now all employers can do it as there becomes an established going rate for a role.

@RandomLondoner
Sorry hadn’t finished. In answer to your comment about benefits, I don’t link the two as the benefit system isn’t always involved. Someone losing one job and entering another might not even be using benefits system. Some of the jobs where people claim tax credits are highly qualified jobs, these aren’t just the jobs that people take because theyre forced off benefits. They’re jobs wanting experience and qualifications that someone who just lost their job might move to. Those salaries have eroded irrespective of benefits.

Well that’s my perspective. Have never been on benefits or tax credits but now looking at the job market at highly experienced and qualified jobs that you can’t get with a few GCSEs and no experience.

@Poetrypatty

Not sure all the blame can be placed at Labour's door since we've had a Tory government for the last 11 years I wish Labour would come up with policies to fix this if they ever got in power though.

The stagnation begun under Labour, and I say this as a leftie (though I never voted for Blair).

@ILoveAllRainbowsx the data shows that immigration has a negligible effect on wages.

fullfact.org/immigration/immigration-and-jobs-labour-market-effects-immigration/

I am surprised that this hasn't been mentioned but outsourcing is a big reason. Many jobs have moved from the UK to cheaper jurisdictions which depresses wages.

The fact now with the EU workers leaving is that the British workers are not willing to take those jobs and this has led to the collapse of the supply chain. So we would have stagflation (increase in inflation due to supply shocks) but not necessarily wage increases. If there are wage increases, they would be in very specific sectors like hospitality and HGV driving.

Actually the low wage earners have seen a rise in their incomes due to increases in minimum wage; the biggest affected group are the lower middle class. This is because of over supply of graduates have kept the starting salaries low.

@onlychildhamster

Anyone who understands the law of supply and demand can see that an unlimited supply of Labour (especially from poorer countries, with workers happy to take low pay and poor conditions, in order to send money home) is going to depress salaries. The only people who benefit from this are the business owners.

@Crumble012 immigration also means more businesses, more innovation, more consumers.Its not a zero sum game. Like the situation now is that there are fewer Europeans competing for the jobs but at the same time, employers cannot expand their business due to supply and staffing issues.

@Crumble012 Also now that there is so much media buzz about the high salary for HGV drivers- there are still inadequate numbers of Britons who want the job. I have 2 sisters-in-law who receive UC but none are willing to do the lowly paid jobs. 1 has a masters degree and is going abroad to do an unpaid internship (she got a grant to do this). Even when the internship is over, she would never take on a job in a supermarket or as a HGV driver or in a warehouse, she can stay rent free at her mum's house in London until she finds the right role. Her other sister has no GCSEs and can stay at her mum rent free too.

Even if they started paying supermarket assistants 35k, neither of my SILs are going to work as supermarket assistants. They are just not interested, they would rather not work than do something that they aren't interested in. And I can't even criticise them cos there was a time in my DH's life after he graduated that he stayed at his mum's house and applied for jobs until he found a graduate job that paid £46k (which enabled us to buy our flat in London) so you can see why this kind of thinking is not entirely flawed and its also why my DH has never worked in a minimum wage job despite being from a fairly poor background. Locals have options, immigrants don't. This is true for most economically inactive Britons (unemployment rate is 4.5% and probably includes people in between jobs), and only 22% of the economically inactive population wants a job. How many of those are actually suited to a labour intensive job with long hours in a warehouse or driving a HGV remains to be seen; a lot of them probably have caring obligations/don't have the skills/ex-criminals etc etc.

This is why this country needs immigrants. I am an immigrant too but from a country that is richer than the UK so I would sooner go back to my country (and take DH with me) than work for minimum wage so arguably I am not of much importance to the UK given that we need more essential workers driving HGVs/in the slaughter houses/strawberry picking so that our supermarket shelves stay stocked. So yes we do need these immigrants from poor countries until we can automate a lot of the processes.

At my old employer, 22 years ago the part time job I did on a casual contract was paid £18 per hour. We could also claim meeting allowance of £10 per hour. The meeting allowance has long since gone. There were many years where we received £5 per hour worked for holiday pay. This has now gone. The workload has doubled. The hourly rate is still £18 per hour.

Just a few figures to contribute as I tempted quite a bit in the 2000s.

In 1999-2001, I was paid £7.50 hour doing PA/secretarial work in London, e.g. at Channel 4.

In 2003-2006, I got between £14 to £21 an hour doing audio transcription work for media and corporate clients. I was freelancing for a small company who got the work and paid me £7 per 1000 words. Didn't get any benefits or sick pay though.

In 2006/7, I got £18 an hour as legal secretary reporting to one lawyer (who was on seven figures, but couldn't type at all). Once did overtime all weekend (e.g. catching up on filing) for double-pay, £36 hour.

It all ended in 2008 though.

Im considering an admin job at 20k pro rata. It is so hard to change jobs at the moment. This is consideravly less than I earnt 15 years ago 😭

@Crumble012

www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/15/foreign-lorry-drivers-to-be-allowed-to-make-more-uk-deliveries-cabotage

Rod McKenzie, the managing director of policy and public affairs at the Road Haulage Association, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We don’t want cabotage to sabotage our industry.”

He said: “I spoke to some of our members last night, they were appalled. Ridiculous, pathetic, gobsmacked were some of their more broadcastable comments.

“The government has been talking about a high-wage, high-skill economy, and not pulling the lever marked ‘uncontrolled immigration’, and to them this is exactly what it looks like: allowing overseas haulage companies and drivers to come over for perhaps up to six months on a fortnightly basis to do unlimited work at low rates, undercutting UK hauliers who are facing an acute driver shortage, rising costs, staff wages.

“This is about taking work from British operators and drivers and giving it to Europeans who don’t pay tax here and pay peanuts to their drivers.”

So much for high wage britain. Whats the betting that they will do the same for many industries- bring over the low wage to ease the labour shortage. At least in the past when Eastern Europeans came over, they paid taxes here.