Fresh Call For Living Wage

Nearly half of jobs in some parts of Yorkshire & the Humber fail to pay the living wage. So says the TUC today, as they reveal the figures during their "Fair Pay Fortnight". Nationally the number of people not getting the £7.85 an hour amount which is recommends is around 1 in 5, but in Yorkshire that can be as high as 42.4%.

Yorkshire and the Humber TUC Regional Secretary Bill Adams said: "These figures show that for all the talk of recovery, life is incredibly tough for huge numbers of working people in our region. Extending the living wage is a vital step towards tackling the growing problem of in-work poverty in parts of Yorkshire and the Humber - and Britain as a whole.

"Working families have experienced the biggest squeeze on their living standards since Victorian times, and these living wage figures show that women in particular are suffering from poverty pay. We need a new approach from government if we're to improve the pay and living standards of those paid low wages. "The number of living wage employers is growing rapidly and unions are playing their part in encouraging more employers to sign up and pay it. But we need to see a far wider commitment to pay the living wage from government, employers and modern wages councils - to drive up productivity and set higher minimum rates in industries where employers can afford to pay their staff more."