The 2018 Living Wage has risen to €11.90 up from €11.70 last year.
The change to the living wage is usually determined by taxation and living costs, but experts have said this year’s increase is due to the housing crisis and the associated rising rents.
The rate, which is set in July every year, is non-statutory which means that employers are not forced to comply.
The Living Wage Technical Group aims to establish an hourly wage rate that should give workers enough money to achieve an acceptable minimum standard of living.
A number of employers support the living wage including Aldi, Lidl and Ikea.
With rents now equating to 49.6% of a single person’s living costs in Dublin, the Living Wage Technical Group said that the decreases in insurance and food costs were outweighed by the massive increase in rent costs.
The group also said that they had to limit the amount they could increase the living wage by, otherwise they would have increased it to €12 per hour.
“The calculation methodology for the annual Living Wage includes a limit to the annual increase, in recognition of the fact that employers require some degree of certainty of the direction of labour costs when committing to paying their employees a living wage…without this cap, the rate would rise to €12 per hour.”
We wonder if any other employers will follow suit?
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