3. Low- and high-paid employee jobs

Figure 1: The proportion of low-paid employee jobs fell to 16.2% in 2019 Proportion of high- and low-paid employee jobs for hourly pay and gross weekly pay, whole economy, UK, 1997 to 2019 Source: Office for National Statistics – Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) Notes: Footnotes applicable to all charts in this bulletin can be found in Section 7: Measuring the data. Download this chart Figure 1: The proportion of low-paid employee jobs fell to 16.2% in 2019 Image .csv .xls

In 2019, 16.2% of all employee jobs were low-paid, when considered in terms of hourly earnings. This was the lowest proportion of low-paid employee jobs by hourly pay since the series began in 1997, which coincides with recent increases in the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage rates.

High-paid employee jobs, however, remained at a similar proportion of the total since the series began for both hourly and weekly pay, averaging around 26% of all employee jobs across both the series.

Figure 2: Weekly hours worked in low-paid employee jobs has fallen more quickly than all employee jobs Average total weekly paid hours (including overtime) for low-paid employee jobs and all employee jobs, whole economy, UK, 2016 to 2019 Source: Office for National Statistics – Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) Notes: Footnotes applicable to all charts in this bulletin can be found in Section 7: Measuring the data. Download this chart Figure 2: Weekly hours worked in low-paid employee jobs has fallen more quickly than all employee jobs Image .csv .xls

The smaller decline in the proportion of low-paid employee jobs, when considered in terms of gross weekly earnings rather than in hourly earnings (Figure 1), reflects fewer hours worked per week among the lowest paid in recent years (a fall of 1.7 percentage points since 2016). For all employee jobs this has remained stable (Figure 2). It is not possible to determine whether the fall in hours worked in low-paid employee jobs is the result of employees or employers choosing to reduce working hours.

Figure 3: Scotland had the largest decrease in the proportion of low-paid employee jobs between 2000 and 2019 Proportion of low-paid employee jobs, by region, UK, April 2000 and April 2019 Source: Office for National Statistics – Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) Notes: Region is determined by the employee’s place of work. Footnotes applicable to all charts in this bulletin can be found in Section 7: Measuring these data. Download this chart Figure 3: Scotland had the largest decrease in the proportion of low-paid employee jobs between 2000 and 2019 Image .csv .xls

In 2019, 8.7% of employee jobs in London were low-paid, compared with an average of 16.2% in the rest of the UK (Figure 1). Similarly, London had a higher proportion of high-paid jobs compared with the rest of the UK (42.5% compared with an average of 25.4%, respectively).

The country with the lowest proportion of low-paid employee jobs was Scotland with 14.5%. In Wales, the proportion was 19.1% and in Northern Ireland it was 21.1%.

The proportion of low-paid employee jobs since 2000 has decreased in all regions and countries of the UK. Scotland experienced the largest decrease (by 15.8 percentage points) followed by the South West (15.1 percentage points) and the North East (12.9 percentage points).

The proportion of high-paid employee jobs across all regions has changed comparably little since 2000, reflecting the trend for the UK.

Figure 4: The proportion of low-paid part-time employee jobs in 2019 was over three times as large as that of full-time employee jobs Proportion of low- and high-paid employee jobs by working pattern, UK, April 2019 Source: Office for National Statistics – Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) Notes: Footnotes applicable to all charts in this bulletin can be found in Section 7: Measuring these data. Download this chart Figure 4: The proportion of low-paid part-time employee jobs in 2019 was over three times as large as that of full-time employee jobs Image .csv .xls

There is a large difference between the proportion of low-paid employee jobs for full-time and part-time working patterns: 32.9% of part-time employee jobs in 2019 were low-paid compared with just 9.6% of full-time employee jobs.

Conversely, the proportion of high-paid employee jobs is much higher for full-time employees than for part-time employees. This difference in pay is an important element of the gender pay gap because a higher proportion of women work part-time.

Figure 5: The highest earning full-time employee jobs were paid almost five times as much as the lowest Pay differential between 5th and 95th percentile, UK, April 1997 to 2019 Source: Office for National Statistics – Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) Notes: The pay differential in the table measures the multiple of hourly pay of the 5%-lowest paid job (5th percentile) in overall pay distribution compared with the 5%-highest paid (95th percentile), for example, in 2019 the 95th percentile full-time employee job was paid £39.15 per hour, 4.7 times the lowest paid at £8.29. Footnotes applicable to all charts in this bulletin can be found in Section 7: Measuring these data. Download this chart Figure 5: The highest earning full-time employee jobs were paid almost five times as much as the lowest Image .csv .xls

The highest-paid, full-time employee jobs (at the 95th percentile) were paid just under five times as much as the lowest paid (at the 5th percentile) in 2019, a reduction from 5.5 times in 2011.

For part-timers, this was around four times; however, unlike full-time employee jobs, there has been little change in the relationship between low and high pay in the past five years.

Figure 6: Growth in hourly earnings for the lowest paid 30% of full-time employees was over 4% on average in 2019 Percentage change to the distribution of full-time and part-time hourly earnings excluding overtime for every fifth percentile, UK, April 2019 Source: Office for National Statistics – Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) Notes: Footnotes applicable to all charts in this bulletin can be found in Section 7: Measuring the data. Download this chart Figure 6: Growth in hourly earnings for the lowest paid 30% of full-time employees was over 4% on average in 2019 Image .csv .xls

Changes in the levels of pay shown can be explained, in part, by differences in annual growth rates across the percentiles. Although the proportion of full-time, high-paid employee jobs remained stable in 2019, hourly pay among the 5% highest earning full-time employee jobs increased by less than average (1.8%). The proportion of low paying full-time employee jobs fell while hourly pay grew on average over 4%.

For part-time employee jobs, hourly pay growth was strong across all percentiles until weakening past the 80th percentile. Some volatility is present because of the small sample size so estimates should be used with caution.

This growth in the lower percentiles corresponds with increases in National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage and a fall in the number of employee jobs receiving less than this rate.