Employees in a range of industries, including manufacturing, retail, hospitality and construction – where annual pay is, on average, £2,000 lower than it was four years ago – could wait until 2025 before their salaries return to 2007 levels, according to analysis by the TUC.

The figures reveal that construction workers are earning an average of £88 a week less than they were before the financial crisis seven years ago. Manufacturing workers' wages are an average £33 a week less than in 2007, and in retail, wholesale, hotels and restaurants, employees are £25 a week worse off, with their earnings not predicted to recover until 2024. The cost of living meanwhile has soared by 25%.

The labour market has also seen a huge increase in job insecurity, part-time work, short-term and zero-hours contracts, and a cut in remunerations such as extra payments for unsocial hours and pay progression (extra pay when moving up a scale in a job).

"Before the Conservatives abolished wages councils, workers used to be protected by a higher industry rate that also set rates for holiday and sickness," said Frances O'Grady, general secretary of the TUC. "Now the national minimum wage only covers basic pay. Regardless of your experience, if you start your working life in a low-paid job you are more likely to end it there and do more for the same money. That's why we are arguing for fair pay and protection as part of the whole pay package."

The figures have been released as part of the TUC's first Fair Pay Fortnight, which begins tomorrow. Including the 15th anniversary of the introduction of the national minimum wage, on 1 April, events around the country will see wages summits encouraging employers, unions, local councils and other organisations to agree on the elements that a fair wage should include and to campaign for the return of wages councils. Abolished by the Conservatives in the 1990s, wages councils brought employers, employees and unions together to agree on terms and conditions.

As part of the fortnight, on Wednesday, 21-year-old Bryony Hamblin, of Ystrad in the Rhondda Valley, who stacks shelves for a supermarket chain in Cardiff, will talk about fair pay at the Welsh assembly. She dropped out of university after a year and now lives rent-free with her parents. After being unemployed for a month, she found the only job she could get was working 20 hours a week on three guaranteed shifts: 5am to 9am on Saturdays; 8am to 12pm on Sundays; 2pm to 6pm on Mondays, plus another eight hours throughout the week. She earns £7.28 an hour, plus £1 extra for the 5am start, but with lunch breaks unpaid. She has also signed an agreement that she is available for extra hours and will not take a second job.

Hamblin's take-home pay if she is given extra hours is £200 a week, £90 of which goes on petrol because local public transport is so poor.

"I was brought up with a work ethic, but this job is the only option I've got. If I moved to Cardiff for work, I couldn't afford to live. I'd jump at a chance of a full-time job," she said. "Part-time is perfect for some people, but companies ought to agree to take a percentage of people full-time too."

Hamblin is now a union representative for Usdaw, the shop workers' union. "We are unionised, but it's still hard," she said. "My friend works 20 hours in retail and she's told she has to wear makeup on the shop floor. She can't even be herself and no unions are allowed."

Neil Carberry, CBI director for employment and skills, said: "Wages councils were not particularly effective when they existed, and are even less likely to be successful in the modern environment as … businesses today are, on average, smaller in size and unions are weaker. It's the very flexibility of the labour market that has led to lower-than-expected unemployment levels in recent years. We prefer … a rigorously enforced national minimum wage and then making sure there are routes to higher-paid jobs by investing in skills."