Yorkshire workers '˜face the lowest weekly pay in the country'

Yorkshire created 141,000 jobs in the decade between 2007-2017, it can be revealed.
A Job Centre.A Job Centre.
A Job Centre.

Figures from the BBC Shared Data Unit showed that five per cent of the total jobs created in the UK during this period were in Yorkshire, despite the region boasting 8 per cent of the population.

The figures also show Yorkshire is the lowest region for average wage levels, with the gross weekly wage of the average Yorkshire employee calculated at £502. London, the South East and East England were the highest, with the average worker in London taking home £655 per week. One third of all new UK jobs during the time period were created in London.

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Tony Wilson, director of the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), an independent research centre on employment policy, said: “The UK Government likes to trumpet a ‘jobs miracle, that it has created three million jobs since 2010.

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“The reality is more complicated. It is absolutely the case we have seen the largest employment growth in London and the South East. They have been the engines of the labour market for a decade or more.”

He added: “A lot of the growth in employment has been in low-paid and insecure work.”

Ronald MacQuaid, professor of work and employment at the University of Sterling, said the UK was “far too centralised” while Naomi Clayon from the Centre for Cities, said: ”The biggest cities outside of London are important in the economic role they play but many of them are punching below their weight.”