UK businesses will continue to face pay freezes for the second year running according to new figures.
The data, analysed by the Labour Research Department (LRD), found that pay freezes are now more common than at any other time during the recession with one-third of all pay settlements currently seeing no increase for staff.
‘It is easy to see that pay will not be the sole or even the main bargaining priority in 2010, although it may be too soon to judge the effects of inflation,’ said Lewis Emery, LRD's pay and conditions researcher.
‘Maintaining jobs and business continuity is a greater concern, both in the private and public sectors, but with inflation at 2.4pc pay will not be neglected either.’
The statistics, which track over 2,300 pay, terms and conditions negotiations reported by trade unions, found that over 50 per cent of union negotiators were not expecting a clear change to the economy until the end of 2010.
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