Employers urged to pay their staff fairly as it emerges half a million Scots are paid less than the real living wage
Scottish employers must start paying their staff better poverty campaigners have said after a report showed almost half a million Scots are paid less than the real living wage.
The report, from the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICe), revealed that 467,000 workers received under £8.45 an hour in 2016 – more than 20% of the total workforce.
That number has risen from 395,000 in 2013, meaning there has been an 18% increase in those with jobs that pay less than the real living wage.
Hospitality and retail staff were the most likely to be paid less than the recommended minimum, with 70% of those in the accommodation and food service sectors and 45% of shop workers earning under £8.45 an hour.
At the other end of the scale were the education, construction and professional sectors, each of which had fewer than 10% of workers being paid less than the real living wage.
Peter Kelly, director of the Poverty Alliance, which runs the Scottish Living Wage Accreditation Initiative, said companies must now commit to tackling the issue and ensuring their staff are paid fairly.
He said: “We definitely have a problem with low pay in Scotland and the UK.
“Things like the voluntary living wage, that’s one of the key tools at our disposal to have an impact on work quality, at least in Scotland.
“So we really need more employers to get on board with this.”
The real living wage is a voluntary pay rate, calculated annually according to the basic cost of living in the UK. It currently sits at £8.45 an hour, while the UK Government’s mandatory National Living Wage is £7.20 an hour for those aged 25 and over.
Labour has called on the Scottish Government to do more to create high-skilled, high-paid jobs and take action to improve wages in the lowest-paid sectors.
The party’s economy spokeswoman Jackie Baillie said: “The Poverty Alliance’s efforts to promote the real living wage are to be welcomed but the SNP government's actions have simply not been good enough.
“The SNP voted against Labour plans for a real living wage guarantee in public contracts and thousands of workers missed out as a result. The SNP Business Pledge scheme, designed to promote the living wage, covers a tiny fraction of Scottish jobs.
“In the long term we need to shift our economy towards the high-skilled, high-paid jobs of the future if Scotland is to really thrive.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government is using all powers at its disposal to promote fair pay. We are doing this through our approach to fair working practices in procurement, our support for living wage accreditation, the business pledge and the Fair Work Convention.
“Scotland remains the best performing of all of the four UK countries in terms of paying the living wage, with the highest proportion of employees paid the living wage or more – around 80% – while the number of Scots-based Accredited Living Wage Employers has risen to more than 660.
“We are continuing to work with the Scottish Living Wage Accreditation Initiative to increase the number of employers paying the living wage, as we make progress towards the challenging target of 1,000 accredited employers by autumn 2017.”
