Kirklees Cabinet members admit that while the living wage is admirable, more is needed to eliminate or alleviate the problems
low-paid workers face.
MORE than five million workers are stuck in
low-paid jobs, a shock report has revealed.
The number of
low-paid workers has nearly doubled from four million in the 1990s to around seven million in 2011.
Its analysis of Welsh adults aged 25-plus who were in employment between 2002-03 and 2012-13 suggests that 25% of these workers were
low-paid and 12% were "stuck" in longterm low pay.
The report argues that the skills of
low-paid workers must be boosted for the UK to compete against international rivals, and proposes money should be made available to employers to fund skills training and qualifications for 2.9 million workers.
Today more than one in three people aged 16-30 are
low-paid, compared with one in five in the pre-Thatcher 1970s.
Unison regional secretary Ravi Subramanian welcomed the plan which will see 2,743
low-paid staff such as cleaners and dinner ladies, including many of his members, get a pay rise.
This paper draws out the implications of the NEST, focusing upon
low-paid employees and their employers using data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings.
But the ippr report - Nice Work If You Can Get It - warned millions of workers were trapped in
low-paid, low-skilled jobs.
General secretary Brendan Barber said: "The increase in the minimum wage will help thousands of families, but the
low-paid face a high inflation rate as they spend a much greater proportion of their income on food and energy where prices have rocketed.
Women become "trapped" in part-time,
low-paid jobs after having a child, and are more likely to be in insecure jobs as temps or homeworkers, where they have fewer employment rights.
For Whiteford the imortant question is how to tackle the issue of welfare dependency among parents whose choice is to stay on welfare--low-paid but comfortable--or try to get a job that would be
low-paid and insecure, and for which the net benefits go overwhelmingly to the Government,