Weekly wages have increased by just £16 in 14 years when inflation is factored in, according to research from living-standards think tank the Resolution Foundation.

Workers have experienced an “unprecedented” pay squeeze since 2010 with real weekly wage growth of £16 due to two crises and Brexit, the foundation said.

The sum factors in price rises across the time period.

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Slow wage growth

Economic challenges in the form of the financial crisis of the late 2000s and the current cost of living crisis coupled with Brexit’s economic effects have acted to suppress wage growth, it said.

It’s a significant slowdown from the rises seen in the 14 years up to 2010 when wages rose £145 a week. It’s also small when compared to other large economies.

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If wage growth had been at the level of Germany and the US, people would be earning £3,600 more a year, equivalent to £69.23 a week.

While wages have been rising faster than inflation in the past few months they haven’t been high enough to overcome a nearly two-year period where the price of goods was going up more quickly than pay packets.

While the latest official inflation reading showed prices rose 2% and wages rose 6%, price rises fuelled by high energy bills after the invasion of Ukraine had been eroding the benefits of salary increases.

Those high energy costs followed pandemic-era price hikes after lockdowns caused problems in product supply chains. Households have been struggling with high bills particularly since energy bills skyrocketed in the early months of 2022.

Improvements for the lowest-paid

Wages have, however, increased more for the lowest earners as the minimum wage has been raised, the Resolution Foundation said.

Those in traditionally low-paying jobs such as cleaners, bar staff and shop workers have seen their typical hourly pay rise against inflation and is now 20% higher than in 2010. It’s significantly higher than the typical pay growth across the workforce, which is 1.6%, the thinktank said.

A rise in the minimum wage in 2016 was credited for this.

It’s resulted in hourly wage inequality between low and median earners reaching the lowest level since the mid-1970s.

The minimum wage is now one of the highest in the world, the foundation added.

Employment gains and losses

Gains were also made in the number of people at work in the UK, though it is one of just six countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) group of nations that has yet to return to its pre-pandemic employment rate.

Of the 38 OECD countries only the UK, Latvia, Iceland, Chile, Colombia and South Africa have fewer people in employment than before the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

Investors in Getir, the food delivery group which is abandoning its UK operations, have approved a break-up of the company that will trigger a fresh capital injection of up to $250m (£197.5m).

Sky News has learnt that Getir, which is based in Turkey, held an extraordinary general meeting on Sunday at which shareholders backed plans to split it into two independent companies.

The first will consist of its food and grocery delivery operations in Turkey, and will be majority-owned and controlled by Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi state investment fund.

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This business will be led by Batuhan Gultakan, a current Getir executive, while Nazim Salur, the company’s founder, will have no active involvement in it.

Instead, Mr Salur will run the other standalone business, comprising Getir’s other assets, including Getir Drive and BiTaksi, the ride-hailing services.

Getir’s withdrawal from the UK and other European markets, confirmed in the spring, represented a full-scale retreat for a company once-valued at nearly £10bn.

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Insiders said that as part of the restructuring, Mubadala had agreed to inject up to $250m into the company, both to facilitate the orderly wind-down of its UK and European arm and to invest in growing its Turkish food delivery business.

Mubadala is said to be optimistic about the outlook for the Turkish market, and that the restructuring would leave the company in a much stronger position, according to another source close to the situation.

Part of the funding could be used to repay outstanding liabilities, which are understood to include several million pounds owed to Tottenham Hotspur FC, whose training kit it sponsored.

Hundreds of jobs are being lost in the UK as a result of the closure of Getir’s business.

Companies such as Getir were big winners during the pandemic, attracting funding at astronomical valuations.

Its decline highlights the slumping valuations of technology companies once-hailed as the new titans of food retailing.

Many of its rivals have already gone bust, while others have been swallowed up as part of a desperate wave of consolidation.

Getir, whose name means ‘to bring’ in Turkish, bought rival Gorillas in a $1.2bn stock-based deal that closed in December 2022.

Getir could not be reached for comment, while Mubadala declined to comment.

Voters have been left in the dark over how the major parties will be able to fund their spending commitments, a respected thinktank has said, offering just “thin gruel”.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) took further aim at what it described as a “conspiracy of silence” from both the Conservatives and Labour on how they could meet the challenges they identify, such as reducing NHS waiting lists.

Launching its report on the crucial documents, IFS director Paul Johnson warned that spending on many public services would likely need to be cut over the next parliament unless government debt was to rise or taxes increased further.

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He pointed to pressure from a 60-year high in government debt levels at a time of a near-record tax burden.

Much of the blame for this was a £50bn a year increase in debt interest spending relative to forecasts, he explained, and a growing welfare budget in the wake of the COVID pandemic and cost of living crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We have rising health spending, a defence budget which for the first time in decades will likely grow rather than shrink, and the reality of demographic change and the need to transition to net zero,” Mr Johnson said.

“Add in low growth and the after-effects of the pandemic and energy price crisis and you have a toxic mix indeed when it comes to the public finances.”

“These raw facts are largely ignored by the two main parties in their manifestos”, he declared, describing the information presented to voters as a “knowledge vacuum”.

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The main verdict on tax

“In line with their unwillingness to face up to the real challenges, neither main party makes any serious new proposals to increase taxes”, Mr Johnson said.

“Consistent with their conspiracy of silence, both are keeping entirely silent about their commitment to a £10bn a year tax rise through a further three years of freezes to personal tax allowances and thresholds.

“Both have tied their hands on income tax, NICs, VAT and corporation tax. The Conservatives have a long list of other tax rises, and reforms, that they wouldn’t do. Labour have ruled out more tax options since the publication of the manifestos.

“Taken at face value, Labour’s promise of no tax increases on working people” rules out essentially all tax rises. There is no tax paid exclusively by those who don’t work. Who knows what this pledge is really supposed to mean,” he concluded.

What about the other parties?

The IFS said the Liberal Democrats had bigger tax and spend policies than Labour or the Conservatives.

It also determined that Reform UK and the Greens offered much bigger numbers but declared that what they propose is “wholly unattainable”, helping to “poison the entire political debate”.

Mr Johnson concluded: “The choices in front of us are hard. High taxes, high debt, struggling public services, make them so.

“Pressures from health, defence, welfare, ageing will not make them easier. That is not a reason to hide the choices or to duck them. Quite the reverse. Yet hidden and ducked they have been.”