Employee Rewards and Benefits News
Pay statistics 'could be misleading'
Pay is predicted to lag behind inflation in 2010 by the Hay Group, with one expert commenting on this trend and how the figures may be less representative than they seem.
Alex Flynn, spokesman for the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), said that in the public sector, people hear of pay cuts of £5,000, though the Hay Group look at the other public groups such as teaching, doctors and the police, with many of them in multi-year deals.
He explained: "It is going to be a difficult and challenging time, for both sectors. There is a danger a wedge can be driven between those workers by politicians, by them saying the public sector is immune, when that is not the case."
Mr Flynn added that there is the added danger that the debate around pay and reward can make the situation divisive as politicians soften the public opinion with "propaganda", following that by putting people on the dole and taking money out of the economy.
The PCS is the fifth-largest trade union in the UK and is organised throughout the civil service and government agencies.
Posted by Michael Ewing
