The amount employees are spending on essentials, such as groceries and home maintenance, and luxury items, such as Amazon vouchers or technology products, through reward schemes has narrowed, according to research by YuLife.
The benefits and reward provider surveyed higher-earning white-collar workers in professional roles and lower-paid manual labour blue collar workers for its latest research. When it began tracking redemption patterns back in 2021, it found that employees overwhelmingly spent their rewards on luxury items, but the gap has narrowed significantly since then.
This had the strongest impact on blue collar workers, as only 17% of their YuCoin, which is YuLife’s in-app currency, was spent on groceries in December 2021, whereas this figure peaked at 46% in December 2023. Their spending on non-essential items decreased from almost 70% in 2021 to around 50% in 2024.
In 2021, white-collar workers spent 11% of their YuCoin rewards on essentials, which rose to 25% this year. Around 60% of their rewards are now spent on non-essentials, compared to 72% in 2021.
Since the beginning of 2022, there has been a decline in redemptions for luxury providers in the retail, clothing, and technology categories among blue collar workers, with growing increases towards groceries and home maintenance spend.
There has been a similar shift with increased grocery spending for white collar staff, influenced by rising living costs, but a smaller portion of their monthly spend is dedicated to groceries compared to blue collar employees. Despite this, white collar workers allocate a larger share of their rewards towards retail and clothing purchases.
Sammy Rubin, chief executive officer and co-founder of YuLife, said: “These findings highlight the growing importance meaningful employee benefits that adapt to the evolving needs of the workforce, with employees increasingly using financial rewards to cover the costs of day-to-day expenses. Businesses must help employees cultivate a sense of financial wellbeing, as the stress financial security induces can significantly impact their productivity and engagement in the workplace.”
