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Workers’ pay down £1200 in two years

Workers have lost a ‘staggering’ £1200 from their pay packets according to Scotland’s largest trade union body.

New analysis from the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) has revealed workers' pay in Scotland is down by £1223 within the last two years as a result of pay not keeping up with inflation. The average worker in Scotland took home £533 a week in October. In real terms, this has fallen £13 a week since October 2021.

Office for National Statistics data further reveals an increase in unemployment from 3.3% to 4%, with economic inactivity rising from 22.3% to 22.7% and employment falling from 75.1% to 74.3%.

The information has been condemned by STUC General Secretary Roz Foyer, calling the UK Government’s economic strategy “economically incompetent”.

Commenting, Ms Foyer said:

“It’s absolutely staggering that due to the economic incompetence of the UK Government, workers throughout the country are paying the price to the tune of £1223.

“In the midst of a cost-of-living crisis and because of the UK Government’s failure to bring down inflation, workers are still feeling the overall pinch in their pay packets.

“Worse still, with an incredibly gloomy economic outlook with employment down, unemployment up alongside rising economic inactivity, unions throughout the country are absolutely right to point out that the UK Government and Bank of England economic strategy is actually costing jobs. “You cannot allow inflation to cut to the bone the wages of hard-pressed workers and conceivably expect economic growth. There is another way: progressive taxation of those with the most and redistribute that into the pockets of those who have the least. Anything else is just a deliberate slight on workers.

END

Notes to editors:

Links to datasets as follows:

• Scottish pay data
• Scottish labour market data