All out! Economists in strike action

ECONOMISTS at a respected think-tank are going on strike over pay offers that have fallen well below inflation.

Forecasters and researchers at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) will stage a two-week protest, as the cost of living soars but their salaries remain stubbornly close to pre-pandemic levels.

Niesr’s economists warned in November that the months ahead would mark a ‘crunch time for household incomes’, as inflation reaches highs not seen in decades. But their caution was seemingly unheeded by the think-tank’s trustees, who refused to bump up staff pay in line with the cost of living.

If it goes ahead, the strike will be the first in Niesr’s history since it was founded in 1938, by a group of social and economic reformers including John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge.