Via: This is Money

By Rachel Rickard Straus
PUBLISHED: 06:27 EST, 7 March 2013

British workers have seen their wages plummet faster than any other workforce in a developed economy, a new study reveals today.

Real wages dropped by 4.5 per cent between 2007 and 2011, leaving workers with smaller incomes at a time of rising costs for basic necessities such as food, fuel, gas and electricity – not to mention housing costs.

This marks a considerably sharper squeeze than the 2.7 per cent fall in Italy or 0.7 per cent drop in Japan, according to the report from the TUC.

Meanwhile wages in Australia and Canada grew by 6.9 per cent and 5.4 per cent respectively.

The bulk of the decline was seen in 2011, the Coalition’s first full year in office, when wages shrank by 3.5 per cent – nearly twice as fast as in Spain, the second worst-performing economy that year.

The figures come as British business groups warned today that conditions in the UK economy are likely to remain tough for some time.

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