Pay freezes and low wage rises are 'new norm', says CBIQuote:
Workers must face the reality that pay freezes and low pay rises are the "new norm" for companies trying to stay competitive, according to a leading business body.
Almost half of firms intend to push through a below-inflation pay rise in the year ahead, with one-fifth planning a pay freeze, the CBI warns in a new report on Thursday.
The report comes as separate research on Thursday, by Incomes Data Services, shows pay growth has eased with recent high inflation hitting workers' wages "hard".
...
John Cridland, CBI director-general, said: “Businesses have been creating jobs where they can over the past few months, and it looks as though that steady trend of employment growth in the private sector is set to continue.
“But hiring plans are cautious, and pay awards in particular remain low as businesses look to make sure they stay competitive in tumultuous times. We have to accept this constraint as the new normal – we will only be able to afford to pay ourselves more in the long-term by improving productivity and competing more effectively around the world."
Fuck the CBI, what a vile shower of grasping twats. Presumably this 'new normal' doesn't involve pay restraint for our hardworking chief executive overlords. It is interesting to see one of the paradoxes of capitalism in action, though - capitalists need to drive wages down because they pose a hurdle to further capital accumulation, but by doing so they lay waste to their own workers' buying power and so inadvertently condemn themselves to reduced profits, especially now that consumer credit isn't flowing as freely as it once did. These people seem to have a total blind spot when it comes to the fundamentals of demand. I don't know whether it's just ignorance or something more sinister.