High Proportion Of Workers In NI Being Paid Below The Real Living Wage

Paying what is known as the Real Living Wage is a voluntary action for businesses to take. As long as they are paying the national minimum wage they are quite within their legal obligations.

The Real Living Wage is currently set at £12 an hour (outside London that is), whereas the national minimum wage is currently £11.44 if you are 21 or over (it’s £6.40 an hour for workers under 18 and apprentices and £8.60 an hour for people aged between 18 and 20).

Less Than 100 Businesses Signed Up To Real Living Wage Scheme

The latest figures suggest that quite a high proportion of workers in Northern Ireland are being paid below the Real Living Wage, certainly more than in most other parts of the UK. For instance over 15,000 businesses across the UK have signed up to the scheme so that they are accredited with paying their workers at least as much as the Real Living Wage. But less than 100 of these businesses are based in Northern Ireland.

Scotland Very Much Ahead Of Northern Ireland When It Comes To Wages

Here is what Regional Manager for Living Wage NI, Mary McManus, said about the issue of relatively low pay here, as copied from an article by Clodagh Rice on the BBC News website:

“In Scotland they are very much ahead with almost 4,000 employers signed up and Wales has almost 600 employers signed up,” she said.

“It’s taken us about 13 years to get to this point and this is also reflected in the fact that we have one of the highest rates of people in Northern Ireland being paid below the real living wage in the UK,” she said.

And here are some figures on wage levels which have been copied from the same BBC News website:

‘Official wage figures for last year show 15.6% of employee jobs last year were below the real living wage, which is one of the highest proportions in the UK, well above the UK average (12.9%), Wales (12.9%) and Scotland (10.1%).

‘That means an estimated 190,000 people in Northern Ireland earning below the threshold.

‘Women were more likely to be paid below the real living wage, as were part-time workers.’

And finally in the same article Madison Kryt, who is supervisor at the Bullhouse East Bar in Belfast, talks about what a difference it makes to be paid the Real Living Wage. She says:

“It makes a big difference,” she said.

“In a lot of my previous jobs I’ve fought for a living wage going for new positions so being on a living wage now is huge, it means I am able to afford to live here and have a life outside of work as well.”

In previous workplaces, employers told her they could not afford to pay the real living wage.

“After those meetings I have just ended up finding a different job that either paid more or seemed to value their employees more,” she said.