Nearly 30% Of Women On Less Than Living Wage

There were an estimated 41,000 jobs in the area paying less than the Out of London Living Wage in 2014, or 32.4% of all jobs, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.

The statistics show that the proportion of jobs paying less than needed for an “adequate” standard of living has increased, with those aged between 18 and 24 the most often paid below the guideline rates.

In retail in 2014, an estimated 59% jobs paid less. Other industries also have high proportions of jobs paying below the Living Wage – for example, administrative and support services, arts, entertainment and recreation, and agriculture, forestry and fishing all had over one-third of jobs paying below the Living Wage in 2014.

“In 2014, there were a few 6 million employee jobs paid less than the living wage in the UK”.

The living wage, an independently set hourly rate, is based on the cost of living and is now set at £7.85 outside London and £9.15 in the capital.

Millions of United Kingdom workers earned less than the living wage in 2014, with young people and women particularly affected.

There are only three years of estimates available for the rest of the United Kingdom, but the ONS says that the proportion of employee jobs paid less than the Living Wage rose from 21 per cent in April 2012 to 23 per cent in April 2014.

Meanwhile, separate research from job site CV-Library shows United Kingdom professionals working in the City of London are the poorest workers in Britain.

In total, there were 287,000 jobs across Wales paying less than the living wage.

Employers have to sign up to pay it voluntarily – and there are 1,800 firms doing so from leading banks such as Barclays, RBS and HSBC to small organisations employing a handful of staff.

In his Summer Budget of 2015, Chancellor George Osborne announced a new National Living Wage (NLW), described as a “new premium on top of the NMW (National Minimum Wage)”. We need to value women’s work more. Despite overall wage rises, this means that in-work poverty has increased.