Employees in the UK have seen their real wages fall by 10.4%, according to research by the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
The research, which looked at real wage change and employment rate change for countries within the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) between 2007 and 2015, found that the only other country to showcase a similar decline in wages to the UK was Greece, whose real wages also fell by 10.4%
Over the same time period, real wages grew in Poland by 23%, in Germany by 14% and in France by 11%, with real wages across the OECD increasing by an average of 6.7%.
In comparison, the UK, Greece and Portugal (-3.7%) were the only OECD countries to report a drop in real wages.
Frances O’Grady, general secretary at the TUC, said: “Wages fell off the cliff after the financial crisis, and have barely begun to recover. As the bank of England recently argued, the majority of UK households have endured a ‘lost decade of income’. People cannot afford another hit to their pay packets.
“Working people must not foot the bill for a Brexit downturn in the way they did for the bankers’ crash. This analysis shows why the government needs to invest in large infrastructure projects to create more decent, well-paid jobs. Other countries have shown that it is possible to increase employment and living standards at the same time.”
