Great Britain : conservatives promise a minimum hourly salary of £10.50 (€11.80)

With an early general election looming, the atmosphere in the UK is increasingly geared to one-upmanship. While the Labour Party has been recently repeating its promise if it wins the election to raise the National Living Wage to £10.00 per hour (€11.24) for all (c.f. article No. 11354), Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party intends to go even further. During the annual Tory party conference in Manchester that closes on 02 October, Chancellor Sajid Javid promised the raise the minimum hourly salary to £10.50 (€11.80) by 2024. In addition, the Conservatives want to pay this hourly salary to those over 21 years of age instead of the current condition of only qualifying for the maximum level at age 25 and over. The National Living Wage has in fact four age categories: those under age 18, those aged between 18-20, between 21-25, and those aged 25 and over. Finance Minster Sajid Javid explained that in a bid to “reward the hard work of all millennials,” in 2021 the minimum hourly salary of £10.50 will be paid to those aged 23 and above and in 2024 it will be paid to those aged 21 and over. Called a “pathetic attempt at catch-up” by the Labour Party, the announcement has nonetheless worried employers and Dame Carolyn Fairbairn DBE, CBI Director-General stated, “Increasing productivity is the only way to sustainable pay rises.” For its part, the TUC union confederation has underlined that “This pledge would be overwhelmed by a no-deal Brexit.”