Herald today
The Herald’s headline seems to be based on this statement in the original TUC report:
Across the UK, 58% of social care workers are paid less than the real living wage of £9.30 an hour. In Scotland, the figure is 43%.
But, the TUC report, in the notes, based on ONS data for Scotland in 2019, tells us that ‘the typical hourly rate for care workers‘ is £10.03 per hour.
How the 43% figure was calculated is not clear.
The TUC is, of course, ignorant of the four points below and while the Herald mentions Jean Freeman’s intervention in passing, they make nothing of it:
- In April 2020
‘Social care support workers providing direct adult support will have their pay increased to at least the Real Living Wage rate of £9.30 an hour for all hours worked, including sleep-overs and hours worked by personal assistants. The Scottish Government will also provide funding to third sector and independent providers specifically to ensure staff receive sick pay if they are off work ill or because they are self-isolating.’
https://www.gov.scot/news/pay-rise-for-social-care-staff/
2. From November 2017:
Only Scotland and Wales pay the living wage to all NHS employees and Scotland was first to pay the living wage to all public-sector employees. Recent consultation on taxation suggests that this group will also be protected from any tax increases.
Make the NHS a living wage employer says UNISON
3. From October 2017:
Scottish care workers have been receiving the Living Wage of £8.45 per hour since October 2016 and will now [unlike in rUK] receive the same rate for all ‘sleepover hours worked. This will make a big difference to around 40 000 workers. Most are women.
https://news.gov.scot/news/pay-boost-for-carers
4. From November 2017:
8% of the population yet 28% of the living -wage employers
https://news.gov.scot/news/1-000th-living-wage-employer
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
From a November 2019 report, based on ONS data –
Across the UK, Scotland has the second lowest proportion earning below the Real Living Wage (17%).
Beaten only by SE of England (15%) (hardly surprising).
Lowest proportion of females earning below the threshold is in Scotland.
Lowest Female in-work poverty is in Scotland.
https://home.kpmg/uk/en/home/media/press-releases/2019/11/jobs-paying-less-than-real-living-wage-drops-to-seven-year-low.html
Given the points you’ve made, the results for female workers will have improved further.
Sidenote: Part-time work is responsible for a lot of in-work poverty. There are clearly some who choose to work only part-time, but there are many who would choose otherwise.
Latest ONS data, for Aug-Oct 2019, shows 1.4m temporary employees (5.1% of all employees); 364,000 (25.6%) couldn’t find a permanent job. There were 8.4m part-time workers (30.2% of all employees); 875,000 (10.4%) couldn’t find a full-time job. So 1.2m wanting more/better employment, which is 4.4% of all employees, to be added to the 2.4% they say are on zero-hours. So total of 6.8% of all employees could be said to be under-employed, all of whom are ignored in the unemployment data!
Also shows 4.96m are self-employed, 1.48m (29.8%) of which are said to be part-time – some of whom I suspect would wish to be full time.
This is from the spreadsheet linked at – https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/fulltimeparttimeandtemporaryworkersseasonallyadjustedemp01sa
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The living wage is still not high enough.
Care workers in my opinion should be on at least £15 an hour.
Then there will be more people going for those jobs more people qualified in health and safety and other helpful areas
Pay people good pay and their home life improves
Their home life improves they have fewer troubles
Fewer troubles they are happier people
Happier people perform at work better
I’m not even a rocket scientist
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Agreed
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And, why is the Herod and most of the rest of the Scottish media questioning the OWNERS of the care homes.?
The media were cheerleading when Mrs Thatcher’s Government began the privatisation process, followed with equal enthusiasm by Labour 1997/2010
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Sorry, a ‘not’ has been omitted in the first paragraph.
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I don’t think the words ‘private care homes’ appeared in what was a very long report in the Herald.
The steps the SG took a few weeks ago to give the living wage etc to those in the sector was barely acknowledged.
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