Voluntary living wage to rise by 40p an hour
03/11/2015
The voluntary living wage in the UK is set to rise by 40p from £7.85 to £8.25 per hour.
The UK's voluntary living wage is an informal benchmark for the minimum amount workers should be paid. It is not legally enforceable, and is higher than the legal minimum wage in the UK which stands at £6.70 an hour.
More than 2,000 business with over 70,000 workers have signed up to the scheme so far, and will now have six months to increase their minimum pay from £7.85 an hour to £8.25 an hour.
The increase comes after a report on Sunday from accountancy firm KPMG showed that almost six million workers in the UK are paid less than the living wage. Young people, women and part time workers were most likely to be underpaid.
Sarah Vero, director of the Living Wage Foundation said:
"Today we are celebrating those 2,000 responsible businesses that are voluntarily paying the living wage to their staff.
"These employers are not waiting for government to tell them what to do. Their actions are helping to end the injustice that is in-work poverty in the UK now,"
In the last budget George Osborne announced a new compulsory “National Living Wage” that will come into force from April 2016. This will ensure employers pay workers aged 25 and over £7.20 an hour.
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