Troubled employers will impose pay freezes to save jobs in the next 12 months, predicts Charles Cotton, public policy adviser, reward at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).
“Organisations seem more prepared to freeze pay than to make redundancies,” he said.
According to the CIPD’s Labour market outlook, published in November, 19% of employers in the voluntary sector were planning a pay freeze, compared with 8% in the private sector and 43% in the public sector.
Cotton said employers implementing pay freezes would have to think of ways to keep top talent motivated.
Of the 1,021 HR professionals in the survey, 23% intended to postpone their pay review, 5% for between one and six months, and 18% for between seven and 12 months.
Cotton said: “The proportion of organisations that make pay increases will depend on what the economy is doing.”
Trinity Mirror has said it will impose a pay freeze for all staff this year. The publisher’s advertising revenue on national titles was down 10% year on year, and down 7% on regional titles.
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