Earnings and hours of work - The Herefordshire Partnership

Earnings and hours of work

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The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is a national data set, which provides information about the levels, and range of earnings and hours worked, for employees in all industries and occupations.

The ASHE survey provides data on earnings for employees: gross annual, weekly and hourly pay (including and excluding overtime) and hours worked (including and excluding overtime). It also provides a breakdown of earnings by gender and full/part-time workers; available down to local authority level and for parliamentary constituencies. Earnings by occupation and industry are available but only at a national level.

There are two sets of earnings data for Herefordshire:

• Workplace based - all people who work in Herefordshire regardless of which county they live in, and
• Residence based - people who live in Herefordshire i.e. including those who work outside the county.
  
  

National Indicator # 166 Definition: Median gross weekly pay (£/week) of full time employees on a workplace basis. The respective values for Herefordshire are (£/week.): 2006 - 386.10 (±43.90) 2007 - 385.40 (±65.72) 2008 - 389.40 (±49.61) There has been a slight increase in earnings in Herefordshire; however the change was not statistically significant. Information on National Performance Indicators (external link)

Earnings
To be consistent with National Indicator data, general analysis and comparative statistics focus on earnings of full-time employees on a workplace basis. The reason for focusing on full-time rather than part-time is because the difference within the category can be very large, as it includes those who work for anything up to 35 hours. The proportions of part-time workers also vary across different authorities, making it difficult to compare earnings in a meaningful way.

Most current data available is 2008, which due to previous changes in methodology is only comparable with data for 2007 and 2006.

In 2008, earnings for people working in Herefordshire were:

• median gross weekly earnings - £389.40 compared to £448.90 (± £7.90) in the West Midlands region and £483.10 (± £1.90) in England
• annualised¹ earnings - £20,304 (± £2,587) compared to £23,407 (± £413) for the West Midlands and £25,190 (± £99) for England
  
  
  Chart 1: Distribution of earnings for all full time workers in Herefordshire, the West Midlands and England 2008. Error bars show 95% confidence interval (see data download for explanation of confidence intervals)

Source: ASHE 2008, ONS-Crown Copyright

When looking at the higher and lower earnings (Chart 1), the only statistically significant differences are:

• Herefordshire's median earnings are lower than the West Midland's and England's median earnings; and
• Herefordshire's lower quartile earnings are lower than England's lower quartile earnings. Lower quartile is the value at which 25% of people are earning less than.
  
  

Herefordshire's weekly work based earnings compared to regionally and nationally appear to be getting worse. The gap between Herefordshire's earnings and those of the West Midlands region and England as a whole is getting wider (Chart 2).

Chart 2. Ratio of Herefordshire's weekly earnings to the West Midlands and England, 2006 to 2008

Source: ASHE , ONS-Crown Copyright

In 2006, Herefordshire's earnings were 6% lower than the West Midlands, whereas in 2008 this gap had widened to 13% lower. The gap between Herefordshire and England earnings is wider but has not increased as much, 14% lower in 2006 increasing to 19% lower in 2008.

Gender pay gaps
Differences in pay between male and female workers are most easily represented as ratios, where values below one represent lesser pay for female workers. The gender pay gap in Herefordshire has been narrowing over the last few years. In 2006 Herefordshire's gender pay gap was 0.74 compared to 0.88 in 2008. This current ratio is higher than those for all other neighbouring authorities, the West Midlands region and England. In 2008 the ratio for England as a whole was 0.79, similar to what it was in 2006 and 2007.

However, caution should be used when looking at gender pay gaps as they may well in part be due to the types work that males and females tend to do and the different level of pay associated with that industry.

Total hours worked (including overtime)
Workers in Herefordshire work a similar number of hours per week (39.1) compared to workers in the West Midlands and England as a whole (both 37.5).

The total number of median hours worked in Herefordshire has decreased slightly from 40.0 in 2007 to 39.1 in 2008. This change over time is not statistically significant, however Herefordshire's median total weekly hours worked in 2008 is statistically higher than the West Midlands region and England as a whole.

¹ Annual salaries are provided by ASHE but they only include earnings of those who are employed in the same job for a year whereas weekly earnings include all workers. Therefore annualised salaries were calculated using median weekly earnings, which includes more employees.