-XpertHR: Median UK Jul-Sep employee weighted pay deal zero
-XpertHR: Jul-sep median unweighted pay deal falls to 2.0%

LONDON (MNI) – Employers expect pay deals in 2013 to come in at, or
very close, to this year’s low levels, according to a survey by XpertHR.

The median employer forecast for pay deals in 2013 is 2.5%, the
same level employers forecast for 2012 and, looking through the monthly
volatility, where this year’s pay deals have materialized. XpertHR said
expected pay deals in 2013 were clustered close to the median, with
seven out of ten in a 2 to 3% range.

Employers’ subdued pay expectations are “unsurprising given the
gloomy predictions on the economy we are seeing at the moment,” Sheila
Attwood, XpertHR Pay and Benefits editor, said.

In the XperHR data series for the economy as a whole the median
basic pay award in the 12 months through August was 2.5%, up from 2.0%
in the same period through August 2011 and employers expect a repeat of
this outturn next year.

UK employment levels have been remarkably robust given the weak
level of growth in the economy, and the low level of pay rises may be
part of the reason for this.

“Perhaps flexible wages have encouraged employers to hold on to
labour,” BOE Governor Mervyn King said in a speech Tuesday.

Pay freezes outside the public sector, however, are becoming a
thing of the past with XpertHR finding only 10% of employers predicting
they would impose one next year.

XpertHR’s latest survey of actual pay deals covers the July to
September period.

The impact of the school teachers’ pay freeze drove down the median
employee weighted pay deal to zero in these three months, with 465,000
teachers seeing a pay freeze effective from September 1.

On an unweighted basis, the median pay deal fell to 2.0% from 2.4%
in the June through August period. The average private sector pay deal
was 2.3% .

The busy times for UK pay deals are right at the start of the
calendar year – the January pay round – and the start of the fiscal year
in April, which is dominated by the public sector deals. The outturn of
employee weighted surveys of deals outside these time can hinge on one
or two large deals.

Another pay specialist, Incomes Data Services also released its
survey of pay deals in the three months through September which showed
pay deals unchanged at 2.5% for the sixth consecutive month.

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