CIPD: Freeze youth minimum wage

11/01/2010

A freeze on the National Minimum Wage for younger workers is necessary to ensure measures to combat youth employment are not undermined, it has been suggested.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said the minimum wage for younger workers should be frozen in absolute terms in 2010. Other measures called for included abolishing the planned National Insurance increases due to come into force in 2011.

The CIPD said the call for the younger worker NMW freeze took ‘expectations of a slow and weak recovery in the labour market’ into account.

John Philpott, CIPD chief economic adviser, said: “We strongly welcome the steps the government has taken to avoid the creation of a ‘lost generation’ in the UK. But freezing the National Minimum Wage for younger workers is necessary to ensure that all this good work is not fatally undermined just as the economy begins to recover.”

Philpot said pay restraint was likely to be a feature of 2010 as employers try to minimise job losses and younger workers ‘lucky enough to have jobs should play their part in helping maximise the chances for those who do not’.