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Alastair Hatchett

Alastair Hatchett

Alastair Hatchett is Head of Pay and HR Services at Incomes Data Services, having been the editor of the IDS Pay Report for 20 years until 2005. He leads several teams of researchers whose work on pay and HR studies is highly respected and widely quoted in management, union and government circles. He has been involved in a range of research projects over the past decade for the Low Pay Commission, the Pay Review Bodies, the CIPD, the EOC, Government Departments and a range of unions. He is a regular conference speaker on reward issues, the labour market and employment trends. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Statistical Society.

Web: http://www.incomesdata.co.uk
  • Labour market

    King’s Speech: Bank Governor highlights 12% cut in take home pay

    26th January 2011 — Filed under: Labour market

    Alastair Hatchett Alastair Hatchett

    In an astonishingly frank speech yesterday, Mervyn King explained that high inflation had squeezed real take-home pay by 12% over the last few years. And this was on the day we learned that the economy had shrunk by 0.5% in the final quarter of 2010. Mervyn King also said that he expects CPI inflation to head to between 4% and 5% in the coming year so there will be no respite from this reduction in disposable income.

    It seems without precedent for the Governor of the Bank of England to carefully calculate how much worse off we all are as a consequence of wage increases consistently falling below inflation and then to broadcast this to the whole nation. This might normally be calculated in-house and kept under wraps. Although IDS analysis of pay rises and inflation has been pointing to the differences over the past year or so.

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  • Labour market

    Earnings growth of 2.1% while inflation heads for 5%

    21st January 2011 — Filed under: Labour market

    Alastair Hatchett Alastair Hatchett

    Average weekly earnings grew at 2.1% in the year to November 2010 while RPI inflation hit 4.8% in December, the month before VAT rises to 20%. This means that over the course of 2010 most employees have seen a reduction of nearly 3 percentage points in the value of their earnings. Figures from the Office for National Statistic released on 19 January show overall earnings growth is consistent with the IDS measure of pay settlements which rose at the median from 2% to 2.2% in the last months 2010.

    The real picture, however, is uneven with earnings growth stronger in some parts of the economy and weaker elsewhere.

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  • Labour market

    Inflation moves higher even before VAT rise to 20%

    18th January 2011 — Filed under: Labour market

    Alastair Hatchett Alastair Hatchett

    Higher petrol, diesel, gas and food prices drove inflation higher in December 2010, even before the rate of VAT was raised to 20% at the beginning of January 2011. The Retail Prices Index (RPI) rose to 4.8% in December, up from 4.7% in November. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) rose to 3.7%, up from 3.3% in November.

    This is widespread concern that these levels of inflation are much higher than forecast earlier in 2010 and are likely to be with us for much of 2011. The large rise in the CPI measure will be a blow to the Government and the Bank of England, both of whom seek to target policy on a rate of 2%.

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  • Labour market

    The use and abuse of earnings data

    9th February 2010 — Filed under: Labour market

    Alastair Hatchett Alastair Hatchett

    The detail of what has been happening to pay and the outlook for the coming year will be discussed in detail at the IDS/TUC pay conference on 16 February.

    It is a strange logic that concludes that a financial crisis that started in the top echelons of banking should be resolved by freezing the pay of nurses, teachers and social workers. Yet since early last year a growing clamour of voices, led by much of the press and then followed by many shades of politicians, have called for public sector pay freezes to resolve financial instability caused by the economic crisis. As part of this process there has been a widespread misreading of the official earnings statistics to try to show that all public sector workers earn more than all private sector workers.

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