Pay Rises (& inflation)

[blandy]

34 minutes ago, villa89 said:

Interest rates need to increase quickly. In the short term this will piss everyone off, reduce living standards and make governments look bad but in the long term it will curb inflation.

Will it? I mean, at the moment, in the UK, there's a shortage of Labour, which means that workers will force up the wage bill, both because their own costs will increase as interest rates rise (higher mortgage payments etc.) and through employers costs rising, and thus prices rising, as a result of higher wage bills. Government debt, which is massive, will incur higher interest payments...which will lead to tax rises...which will lead to higher wages...and so on.

Higher interest rates may cool the housing market, possibly, but I suspect rising inflation is going to be round a while. As the world comes out of Covid (hopefully) demand for products and materials will rise, fuelling demand, fuelling price rises. Potentially Oil and Gas production may be increased, or alternatively it may be deliberately restricted to increase profits even more, and it's a major driver for costs, as everything depends on it, pretty much.

I'm no economist, but wonder whether rather than interest rates being used as a blunt tool, Government wouldn't be better to tackle the problem at source and target the are(s) causing the inflation - Profiteering from energy and raw materials. Though they're limited in what they can do in some ways, as a fair chunk of UK inflation will be related to Brexit and the impact it has had on imports becoming more expensive due to the additional costs and delays of bureaucracy, and reduced availability (supply and demand) and exported good being more expensive to export, again due to bureaucracy and to shipping costs (fewer truckers, more expensive fuel).

But I don't really understand the detail of what seems very complex.

[Genie]

Brexit was always going to create a spike in inflation, it was deferred a bit because of covid but it’s here now. 

[Stevo985]

Our company is pretty good with pay rises to be fair to them. We didn't get much last year but they deferred the pay rise to December so we got it eventually.

We're due our annual rise in March which is 2.8% and they've stuck to it this year (I think they're free to remove up to half of that if they need/want to)

 

I got a promotion last year so I won't get the normal annual rise this year but can't complain at all.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I really feel for people who work for the NHS especially. Saving the country and **** all reward for it. Tory words removed

[villa89]

2 hours ago, Genie said:

Brexit was always going to create a spike in inflation, it was deferred a bit because of covid but it’s here now. 

I dont think it has much to do with Brexit at all. It's the same all over Europe. A lack of raw materials, especially semi conductors, and the cost of oil/gas is the main driver along with the build up of lockdown savings which people  now want to spend. 

[chrisp65]

I think that if you are NHS or most public sector jobs, unless you are top of your pay scale, you will get some sort of modest pay increase every year? Don’t you often start on a scale and then get an incremental rise for a 5 or 7 years? It’s a long long time since I was NHS.

There are plenty in the private sector that don’t have that ladder approach to salaries and also don’t get any sort of annual pay review.

Following the crash, some in the private sector took 10% and 20% pay cuts and had no pay reviews for a few years after that.

Where I’m going with this, the private / public split on wages and pay increases isn’t as black and white as the short hand sometimes suggests.

One interesting thing, I know people that work in an NHS / local government out reach job. The NHS staff received a £500 ‘thank you’ for their work in the pandemic. The local govt staff sat next to them doing the same work, didn’t receive anything. It’s only £500, but it had the potential to be very divisive among colleagues.

 

[Xela]

4 hours ago, villa89 said:

along with the build up of lockdown savings which people  now want to spend. 

I don't, but i'm a right old miser! 

[Demitri_C]

5 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I think that if you are NHS or most public sector jobs, unless you are top of your pay scale, you will get some sort of modest pay increase every year? Don’t you often start on a scale and then get an incremental rise for a 5 or 7 years? It’s a long long time since I was NHS.

There are plenty in the private sector that don’t have that ladder approach to salaries and also don’t get any sort of annual pay review.

Following the crash, some in the private sector took 10% and 20% pay cuts and had no pay reviews for a few years after that.

Where I’m going with this, the private / public split on wages and pay increases isn’t as black and white as the short hand sometimes suggests.

One interesting thing, I know people that work in an NHS / local government out reach job. The NHS staff received a £500 ‘thank you’ for their work in the pandemic. The local govt staff sat next to them doing the same work, didn’t receive anything. It’s only £500, but it had the potential to be very divisive among colleagues.

 

Yes.if your at the top of your banding then you get no pay rise at all in the nhs.

Its pretty shite

[Demitri_C]

7 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

Our company is pretty good with pay rises to be fair to them. We didn't get much last year but they deferred the pay rise to December so we got it eventually.

We're due our annual rise in March which is 2.8% and they've stuck to it this year (I think they're free to remove up to half of that if they need/want to)

 

I got a promotion last year so I won't get the normal annual rise this year but can't complain at all.

I'm one of the lucky ones. I really feel for people who work for the NHS especially. Saving the country and **** all reward for it. Tory words removed

Your company sounds like a really good one to work for. I bet most of the employees work hard to reward the good work conditions there?

[Stevo985]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Your company sounds like a really good one to work for. I bet most of the employees work hard to reward the good work conditions there?

Nah they’re all words removed

[Sid4ever]

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Your company sounds like a really good one to work for. I bet most of the employees work hard to reward the good work conditions there?

No Dem, there’s one bloke there names Ben not Benjamin mind, complete melt.

[Davkaus]

I don't think I've ever had a routine payrise that matched inflation, and employers wonder why we job hop every year or two.

[Genie]

50 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I don't think I've ever had a routine payrise that matched inflation, and employers wonder why we job hop every year or two.

I can’t remember exactly when but about 8 or 9 years back inflation was high and we got 2 great back to back pay rises. Something like 5% then 6% due to inflation spiking up at the right time.

More recently we had no pay rise for 3 years followed by 2% last year. This year is anyones guess. July inflation plus 0.5%. Somewhere between 4% and 7% possibly.