Santa’s letter elves are a little short on their wages
Royal Mail’s Christmas staff to get just £9 an hour
Royal Mail is hiring an army of little helpers to make sure children who write to Father Christmas get a response…
But the elves will not receive a living wage – instead they will scrape by on £9 an hour.
This is 50p lower than the voluntary rate set by the Living Wage Foundation.
While kids are invited to address their letters to Santa’s Grotto, Reindeerland, XM4 5HQ, it turns out his off ice is based in a delivery centre just off the City of Edinburgh bypass.
Royal Mail’s job ad says: “We have an exciting opportunity over the festive period to make sure children who write to Santa through the Royal Mail all receive a reply and we need your help to ensure this can happen.”
The work will be a far cry from the kind elves carry out on TV, too, with Excel proficiency and call centre skills top of the requirements rather than toy-making prowess.
Royal Mail added: “This role requires administration skills and high attention to detail as you will be typing names and addresses into Excel to ensure all people who have sent a letter receive a reply.”
Santa’s elves have also been hit with GDPR legislation, meaning they will need to comply with strict privacy rules over children’s data.
The UK’s compulsory National Living Wage – the minimum wage – is £8.72 an hour, far less than the voluntary level set by the Living Wage Foundation, which increased the Real Living Wage from £9.30 to £9.50 this week.
Its latest research shows there are still 5.5million jobs – 20 per cent of all employees – paying less than the Real Living Wage in the UK.
Northern Ireland had the highest proportion of jobs paying below it, with 25.3 per cent, while Scotland had the lowest, at 15.2 per cent.
The hospitality sector had the highest proportion of jobs paid below the living wage, wa at 70.8 per cent.
LastL year Royal Mai l, BA, BA JD Sports and other big UK firms were urged by city investors inv to promise all employees em would get the Real Re Living Wage.
RoyalR Mail is set to hire a record number of temporary workers – 33,000 – this Christmas to deal with the increased volume of cards and parcels.
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “Each year we engage flexible workers to help us deal with the very significant increase in mail volumes at Christmas.
“We offer a wide variety of shifts and flexible hours. Our rates of pay are always competitive and our flexible workers are eligible for statutory holiday and sick pay.
“Our flexible workers typically work for 12 weeks and may have the opportunity to move into a permanent role.”