Highest paid workers put in the longest hours

Research by the Resolution Foundation think-tank suggests that Britain’s highest-paid workers are also working the longest hours. This is a complete reversal of earlier working patterns when the least-qualified workers and lowest earners worked the longest. The report showed the average working week has increased by 40 minutes since 2009. The longest hours are worked by people inmanagerial roles and skilled trades, whereas the shortest hours are worked by people in the service sector such as hospitality, retail, cleaning and care.  

Men have always worked longer hours of paid work than women, and the gap continues to be more than 9 hours per week. The proportion of workers who are women has risen from 40 per cent in 1979 to 47 per cent today. This reduces average working hours because women tend to work shorter hours than men (27.5 hours, compared to 36.9 hours), although women’s hours have been slowly getting longer.

Almost 22k retail jobs were lost during 2019

In 2019 21,826 retail staff were made redundant, which is 945 more than in 2018 according to a report by ABC Finance. In comparison, there were a recorded 20,881 job losses in 2018 and just 6,884 in 2017. The retail areas hit hardest by administration between 2010 and 2019 were clothin (41%); household essentials (19%) such as furniture, plumbing and electricals; and general shopping (10%).  Those areas lesser affected were beauty and accessories (5%); food stores (5%), other – pet shops, stationers and travel agents (5%), restaurants – chains/cafes (4%); and gift stores (4%).  ABC Finance’s research also highlighted the closure of 9,000 physical UK locations and more than 125,000 redundancies in the last decade from 2010 to 2019. The retail closures have a knock-on effect on the UK’s economy as it generates 5% of the UK’s GDP, worth £1.5bn.

Half of UK workers will request a pay rise this year

Half (49%) of UK workers intend to ask their boss for a pay rise in the next 12 months, according to research from Robert Half UK. The average UK worker intends to ask their boss for a 6% pay rise. This would equate to an increase in the average weekly wage from £585 to £620 for a full-time employee and an increase from £197 to £209 for a part-time employee.

Men are more likely than women to ask their boss for a salary increase (56% versus 44%) while workers between the ages of 25 and 34 are the most likely to ask for a pay rise (58%). According to the research, it takes an average of four months for employees to work up the courage to ask for a pay rise. The top three reasons as to why people had delayed asking for a pay rise were: waiting for a performance review (46%), worried that their employer would say no (34%), and workplace cultures making it difficult to ask for a pay rise (24%).

Accounting is stressful for Micro and Small Businesses

According to research by Starling Bank, micro businesses spend 10 weeks a year trying to sort out their finances, accounting compliance being one of the most stressful tasks. The average micro business works 79 hours per week, of which 15 are spent on financial administration – equivalent to 19% of their business time. Accounting was viewed as the most stressful part of running a business and a third (32%) of micro owners stating that this eats into their non-working time. Sole traders spending almost a third (31%) of their labour time on financial admin work, and companies with 1-4 employees devoting a quarter (25%) of their time to this area. Tax compliance is another area where micros are concerned that they will trip up over complex laws and face HMRC penalties, while changes to VAT reporting have also had an impact under Making Tax Digital for VAT.