This special issue of Pay and Benefits Bulletin is devoted to an annual review of pay trends and prospects, based on key pieces of original IRS research.

Firstly, our round-up of basic pay settlements over the past year reveals how they have dipped from a median 3.5% in the three months to September 2008 to a median of nil in the three months to September 2009.

Secondly, our survey of private sector employers reveals their plans for the year ahead. While more than one in four are undecided about whether they will award pay settlements at all next year, there are signs that pay awards may pick up very slightly to a median 2%.

We have summarised both pieces of research in seven simple slides, which you can flick through.

Lastly, we consider the outlook for the UK economy over the coming year, reviewing what commentators think will happen to economic growth, the labour market, inflation and other key indicators.

All of these resources and more can be found on our Pay Intelligence homepage. If there are pay bargaining resources for the coming year that you would find useful but can't find here, please let me know. Remember that XpertHR also provides a Job Pricing service, giving access to top-quality market pay data.

Our next issue will be devoted to a sector-by-sector round-up of pay trends and prospects for 2010.

Sarah Welfare
Editor,
Pay and Benefits Bulletin

Statistics and forecasts

The datafile contains the most recent inflation, earnings and labour market statistics, pay settlement data and inflation and earnings forecasts. For this issue only, the commentary to our forecasts can be found in the economic outlook.

View article in full

Print article

Forward to a colleague

From the blog

Launched and run by the editorial team that produces XpertHR and the IRS e-journals, the Employment Intelligence blog is regularly updated with news, comment and links to the latest employment developments. Recent posts include:

• Pre-Budget Report 2009 must include clampdown on public sector pay and absences, says CBI
• UK unemployment rate hits 7.9%
• National minimum wage: EEF calls for formula to decide future increases

Today's tip: access official pay benchmarking data

Did you know that XpertHR provides detailed breakdowns of the latest official pay benchmarking data? Our official pay data pages present a selection of the most recent available official data on pay levels, collected by the Government's statistics agency and published in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, with breakdowns by occupation, sector, and UK region.

Print all articles in this newsletter

This newsletter now has a "print all" button. Before pressing it, please be aware that this uses a lot of paper. For the sake of the planet and your toner cartridge, consider whether or not you need to use it. If you press "print all", this will send to your printer all articles linked from the newsletter. Print all articles.