Pay squeeze hits millions

Families worse off in real terms

WAGES are rising slower than living costs for millions of families, figures have revealed.

The average worker saw their pay, excluding any bonus, rise by 2.2per cent year on year last month.

That was less than inflation, which increased 2.3per cent.

Experts predict the squeeze will force families to tighten their belts, hammering a wider economy which has been propped up by consumer spending.

Wages are still being squeezed despite unemployment falling to its lowest in a decade. The UK jobless total fell by 45,000 to 1.56 million in the three months to February, said the Office for National Statistics.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “We now need urgent action to stop another living standards crisis.”

The GMB union said the Tory cap of one per cent on pay rises for public servants had cost the average full-time public sector worker £9000 since 2010.

Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said: “Workers are now suffering a real fall in living standards.

“This is not a claim, it is a fact, and the blame lies firmly at the doors of Downing Street.

“The economy has been kept on the life support machine of consumer credit, but people are now clearly in the vice-like grip of a Brexit squeeze.”

The number of people in work continued to increase – up by 39,000 on the latest quarter to 31.8 million. The employment rate, 74.6per cent, was the joint highest since records began in 1971.

Vacancies were up by 16,000 to a record 767,000.