Half of the UK’s employers are planning an unprecedented second year of wage freezes, underlining companies’ fragile level of confidence in the economic recovery.
Forty-seven per cent of organisations, mostly in the private sector, said they would freeze pay at their next review in the latest employment trends survey by the CBI employers’ group and Harvey Nash, the recruitment consultancy.
That figure is only 8 percentage points down on the previous survey in spring, when output was still dropping sharply.
“Market conditions continue to be tough and growth in 2010 will be feeble, so pay is going to be squeezed for some time to come,” said John Cridland, CBI deputy director-general.
A second year of freezes would be a departure from past recessions. Incomes Data Services, the pay analyst, said recently it expected freezes to start to fade in the new year.
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