[Guernsey] Young workers could see minimum wage rise 15%

In Guernsey, young workers earning minimum wage could see their hourly pay rate increase by £1.75, around 15 per cent, by autumn, Guernsey Press reports.

The Employment & Social Security (ESS) Committee is seeking to equalise the young person’s minimum pay rate and the adult rate by bringing forward proposals to increase the figure for October.

Adults working in Guernsey must currently be paid a minimum of £12.60 an hour, while workers aged 16 or 17 (apart from those on apprenticeships) must be paid a minimum of £11.35.

The ESS proposal is now out for consultation. Under it, the two rates would reportedly be harmonised at a new rate of £13.10 from October.

It would leave the adult rate below Jersey’s minimum wage of £13.59 but higher than those in both the Isle of Man and the UK, where the rates are £12.86 and £12.71 respectively.

The change would represent a big increase for young workers, while the minimum wage for adults would only rise by 4 per cent, the level of core inflation in Guernsey.

ESS president Tina Bury stated that this would protect the real value of the minimum wage. However, she admitted that her committee could not be sure whether it complied with the States’ policy of the rate equating to 60 per cent of median earnings, based on a 40-hour week. No statistics are currently available for median earnings.

Since Guernsey’s minimum wage law was first introduced, the state of the ‘young person’s rate’ has reportedly changed several times. It has sometimes been set below the adult rate, at other times the two rates have been the same.

At present, it is set according to a formula that it should equate to 90 per cent of the adult rate, but Deputy Bury said her committee didn’t support the premise that it was acceptable to pay those aged 16 or 17 less than adults for doing the same or equivalent work.

She did, however, say that no final decisions on ESS’s recommendations to the States would be made until the committee had received feedback from those representing both employers and employees.

Source: Guernsey Press

In Guernsey, young workers earning minimum wage could see their hourly pay rate increase by £1.75, around 15 per cent, by autumn, Guernsey Press reports.

The Employment & Social Security (ESS) Committee is seeking to equalise the young person’s minimum pay rate and the adult rate by bringing forward proposals to increase the figure for October.

Adults working in Guernsey must currently be paid a minimum of £12.60 an hour, while workers aged 16 or 17 (apart from those on apprenticeships) must be paid a minimum of £11.35.

The ESS proposal is now out for consultation. Under it, the two rates would reportedly be harmonised at a new rate of £13.10 from October.

It would leave the adult rate below Jersey’s minimum wage of £13.59 but higher than those in both the Isle of Man and the UK, where the rates are £12.86 and £12.71 respectively.

The change would represent a big increase for young workers, while the minimum wage for adults would only rise by 4 per cent, the level of core inflation in Guernsey.

ESS president Tina Bury stated that this would protect the real value of the minimum wage. However, she admitted that her committee could not be sure whether it complied with the States’ policy of the rate equating to 60 per cent of median earnings, based on a 40-hour week. No statistics are currently available for median earnings.

Since Guernsey’s minimum wage law was first introduced, the state of the ‘young person’s rate’ has reportedly changed several times. It has sometimes been set below the adult rate, at other times the two rates have been the same.

At present, it is set according to a formula that it should equate to 90 per cent of the adult rate, but Deputy Bury said her committee didn’t support the premise that it was acceptable to pay those aged 16 or 17 less than adults for doing the same or equivalent work.

She did, however, say that no final decisions on ESS’s recommendations to the States would be made until the committee had received feedback from those representing both employers and employees.

Source: Guernsey Press