Pages

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The effects of recession

People in the UK are more than 15% worse off than they would have been if wage trends, before the 2008 financial crisis, had continued. Describing this downturn as the longest and deepest slump in a century, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says workers have suffered unprecedented pay cuts of 6% in real terms over the last five years. One-third of workers experienced nominal wage freezes or cuts between 2010 and 2011, and 70% experienced real wage cuts. The study also said that fewer workers are unionised than in the past and those who are not protected by collective wage agreements are more likely to have seen their pay cut or frozen.

The TUC  claim that the UK's annual pay packet had shrunk by £52bn since the start of the financial crisis.

"This period has seen the biggest squeeze of real pay in decades," said Michael Pearce, at Capital Economics. "We're not expecting this damage [to households' real pay] to be reversed any time soon”

Analysing downturns going back to the great depression, Paul Johnson, director of the IFS, said: "This time really does seem to be different … it has been deeper and longer than those of the 1990s, the 1980s and even the 1930s. It has seen household incomes and spending drop more and stay lower longer."

One reason for lesser than expected rise in unemployment in this recession is the rise in part-time workers.

In the US between late 2007 and May 2013, the number of part-time workers jumped from 24.7 million to 27.5 million.  Involuntary part-time employment is not a choice, it’s a burden.

 The Obama healthcare law defines a full-time employee as anyone working more than 30 hours a week, so the boss simply cuts workers' hours and hires additional part-time staff to make up the difference. Stafford notes that as many as 2.3 million workers across the country are at high risk of having their hours slashed to below the 30-hour mark.

Another rising trend is employers changing part-time workers’ schedules from week to week. According to a New York Times report, this manuever is becoming commonplace in the American retail and hospitality industries. Bosses use sophisticated software to track the flow of customers and purchasing patterns in stores, which allows managers to assign just enough employees to handle the anticipated demand. Instead of five- or six-hour shifts, workers get two- or three-hour shifts. They are often called in at the last minute, and have no way of predicting which days they’ll be working.

Management at a popular smoothie shop use weather forecasts and temperature checks to make micro-adjustments to weekly schedule. If the weather tomorrow is hot, the boss knows that more customers are likely to come in for a cool drink, so more employees will be called in for certain shifts. The managers of clothing stores use different variables to estimate shopping patterns. As with so many trends that negatively impact workers, Walmart is cited as a pioneer in the heavy reliance on part-time workers and the penalizing of those who have difficulty adjusting schedules.  According to a 2011 survey by the City University of New York, half of retail workers in New York City were part-time, and only 10 percent of part-timers had a set schedule week to week. One out of five said they had to be available for call-in shifts either all or most of the time. Obviously, single parents can’t shift schedules at the drop of a hat or like students trying to take classes that are time-tabled, suffer under the new “flexible shifts”. And there's little chance of working more than one part-time job if your schedule is in constant flux. Part-time workers are far more likely to be paid minimum wage than full-time workers ( 13 percent v. 2 percent). As they struggle to make ends meet, many will take on multiple part-time jobs to compensate for indadequate hours and pay.

No comments:

Post a Comment