Patterns of pay: results of the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings 1998 to 2004

Key points

* The Annual take a view of of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is a novel survey developed to replace the fresh Earnings Survey (NES). The ASHE includes improvements to the coverage of employee and to the weighting of earnings estimates.

* Between April 2003 and April 2004 the median gros weekly pay of full-time United Kingdom employee upon adult rate increased by 47 for cent to ??423.

* For the 2003/04 tax year median gros annual earnings for fulltime UK employee upon adult rates, who had been in the same piece of work for at least 12 month was ??22001 For males the median gros annual earnings was ??24137 and for females it stood at ??18500

* The sex pay gap narrowed by 12 for cent between April 2003 and April 2004 Mean hourly earnings, excluding overtime, of full-time women upon adult rates was 81.8 by cent of the equivalent mean for men

Introduction

The Annual take a view of of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is a fresh survey developed to replace the of recent origin Earnings Survey (NES). It is the greatest in quantity detailed and comprehensive source of national information on:

* horizontals of earnings (separately for mark of worker and for gender);

* make-up of total earnings (split between basic pay and other components);

* distribution of earnings of individual employee (the expanse to which they are dispersed around the median); and

* it focuses upon medians rather than averages and upon distributions of hours worked (in total and upon overtime).

For more details upon the methodology for the review see pp457-64, Labour Market sweeps November 2004.

The ASHE includes improvements to the coverage of employee and to the weighting of earnings estimates. The data variables mustered remain broadly the same, although an improved questionnaire will be introduced for the 2005 take a view of To improve coverage and make the scan more representative, supplementary information was gathered for the 2004 ASHE take a view of on businesses not registered for VAT and for nation who changed or started novel jobs between sample selection and the review reference period.

Both the change in methodology and the inclusion of supplementary information means that statistics upon pay and hours published from the ASHE are discontinuous with previous NE springs For 2004 two sets of arises are available: the headline proceeds that include supplementary information and originates that exclude this information. For continuity with a back series generated by means of imputation and weighting of the 1998 to 2003 NE follows using the new methodology, this article uses the 2004 ASHE be deriveds excluding supplementary information. Both places of 2004 results are included in the tables accompanying (and referenc within) this article. These tables are solitary available on the National Statistics website at www.statistics.gov. uk/ statbase/product.asp?vlnk-14123.

The be the effects presented in this article are mainly for the median. The median is preferr to the mean for earnings as it is les affected by dint of extreme values and the skewed distribution of earnings data. The median is the value below which 50 by cent of employees fall. However, the means are still available in the annual published results

The first small in number sections of this article at hand summary results of the 2004 ASHE (and, where relevant, the 1998 to 2003 back series) that gaze at overall medians, make-up and distribution of earnings. While these figures are of interest, they can hide wide variations between different industries, occupations, regions and age assemblages The concluding sections of the article give summary analyses of each of these factors.

This article not aways results for the United Kingdom. Past articles single covered Great Britain.

Summary originates for full-time employees

Median gros weekly earnings for fulltime employee upon adult rates working a replete week in April 2004 was ??423 (see Figure 1 and Table 1(1))-At ??361 the median gros weekly earnings of fulltime women increased by means of 5.1 per cent compared with a 43 through cent rise for men (to ??464)

Median gros annual earnings of all full-time employee upon adult rates who had been in the same piece of work for at least a year were ??22001 for the 2003/04 tax year. Mean gros annual pay for full-time women was ??18500 compared with ??24137 for men

Median gros hourly earnings of all full-time employee were ??1056 in April 2004; this showed an increase of 4.9 through cent since April 2003. Full-time female employee saw an increase in median hourly earnings of 08 percentage points more than that for men (53 for cent compared with 4.5 by means of cent respectively).

There has been little change since 1998 in the median total hours worked for week by those in full-time trade and for whom weekly hours were reported. Women worked 370 hours for week, down from 37.1 in 1998 while the number of hours men worked remained unchanged during this period, at 390

Pay differences between men and women

Various rules can be used to measure the earnings of women relative to men upons prefers to use hourly earnings excluding overtime for full-time employee Including overtime can skew the be deriveds because men work relatively more overtime than women; including part-time employee could have a similar issue because women make up a abundant bigger proportion of part-time employee than men The in every one's mouth European standard measure is based upon the mean hourly rate in like manner this is the statistic reported in this section, although the median is also reported.