Oct 12, 2014
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Over the past five years wages have shrunk, with average annual earnings down by about €1,000 since 2009. More people are finding it harder, not easier, to make ends meet. One in five workers is earning less than the ‘living wage’.
Over the past five years wages have shrunk, with average annual earnings down by about €1,000 since 2009. More people are finding it harder, not easier, to make ends meet. One in five workers is earning less than the ‘living wage’, a sum above the minimum wage but below what campaigners consider to be enough to make ends meet. One in six people in poverty has a job, a figure that has grown during the recession. A group of campaigners, trade unions and think tanks has put forward a proposal for a living wage of €11.45 per hour. It estimated that this is the minimum needed to maintain an acceptable standard of living.
English: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/the-living-wage-should ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.