§ Mr. Austin Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for Employment what has been the number of wage settlements notified to his Department in each of the past six months; what was the number of persons covered in each month; and what was the weighted average increase each month.
§ Mr. Jim LesterThere is no obligation for pay settlements to be notified to the Department of Employment and comprehensive information is therefore not available. Some information is obtained regularly on changes in basic rates of wages or minimum entitlements for manual workers, where these are the outcome of centrally determined arrangements, usually national collective agreements and statutory wages orders. The number of changes notified in each of the last six months has been as follows:
Details of these changes are published in the monthly booklet "Changes in rates of wages and hours of work".
National collective agreements and statutory wages orders 1980 Number of changes June 57 July 36 August 20 September 15 October 21 November 25 However, for the major agreements—covering over 90 per cent. of such employees—the details are incorporated in the published monthly index of basic wage rates and have been used to compile the following table. It follows the practice of the index in recording changes against the month when they become operative and not when they are 272W notified. As the number of new agreements in individual months may be small, a three-month average has been used. As well as giving the weighted average of increases in basic wage rates, the range of increases is shown.
National collective agreements and statutory wages orders covered by the index of basic wage rates Operative date: 3 months ended Number of employees covered by a new annual pay settlement Weighted increase in basic wage rates Range of increases 1980 (thousands) Per cent. Per cent. June 1940 17.9 11 to 23 July 1870 18.9 14 to 23 August 1370 19.2 14 to 20 September 420 17.3 11 to 20 October 270 15.3 11to 18 November 1500 9.4 8 to 17 As emphasised above, these figures relate only to national agreements, affecting manual workers. They will not reflect agreements affecting non-manual workers. Also, in most cases pay settlements are made at local level and increases in rates of pay arising from them may not necessarily be the same as those included in national agreements.