UK teachers and doctors to get pay rises of 6% or more
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UK teachers and doctors to get pay rises of 6% or more
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's government has decided to accept recommendations for pay increases for millions of public sector workers, treasury minister John Glen said on Thursday, giving doctors and teachers at least 6% increases.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks' government announced its decision on Thursday, having considered the recommendations of a series of independent pay review boards.
The pay increases are below the current 8.7% inflation rate but are aimed at bridging the gap following a bout of huge industrial unrest across Britain over falling real wages.
Junior doctors will now get a 6% pay uplift and a lump-sum pay increase of 1,250 pounds ($1,633.25), while teachers would get 6.5%. He also announced pay increases for police (7%) and armed forces (5%).
Glen said there would be no new borrowing or spending to fund the increases although teachers' pay rises would be funded by a reallocation of the existing education department budget.
That is likely to anger trade unions who have said school and hospital budgets cannot bear the cost of wage increases without cutting spending in other areas.
After more than a year of elevated inflation - which at its peak hit more than 11% - the government is struggling to balance the need to end strikes with rising public debt levels.
It has has little room for more spending on wages without either raising taxes, cutting other public services or missing its self-imposed targets to reduce borrowing.
Sunak, facing an election next year and trailing badly in opinion polls, has promised to halve inflation and ministers have stressed the danger that increasing wages too far would undermine that goal and could entrench rising prices.
However, the Bank of England has been more focused on pay in the private sector, which has risen faster than public-sector pay and has a more immediate impact on the prices of goods and services used to calculate consumer price inflation.
