Our latest analysis of pay settlements shows the median falling back to 2% in May. However the interquartile range, where half of awards are set, remains at between 1% and 2.8%. This partly reflects a wide range of pay outcomes, with increases monitored in the latest period ranging from a pay freeze to 10.5%. The analysis is based on 130 pay settlements monitored by IDR in the three months to the end of May.
Pay settlement data - three months to end of May 2017 |
| Whole economy | Private sector |
Median | 2.0% | 2.4% |
Average | 2.2% | 2.5% |
Interquartile range | 1.0 to 2.8% | 1.9 to 2.9% |
Based on 130 settlements covering 3.3M employees in total. |
The median had risen to 2.4% in the three months to the end of April, under the influence of more awards worth 3% and above. Many of these were aimed at bringing lowest pay rates in line with the new National Minimum and National Living Wages. Indeed a closer look at private sector awards in the latest period shows that the median here is still at 2.4%.
Our next full quarterly analysis will be in Pay Climate, release date Thursday 7 September.