National Living Wage: One in three workers in wage hotspots will benefit when new rules come in on Friday but very few workers in London will see their pay rise
Around a third of workers in some parts of the country will see their pay packets boosted when the National Living Wage (NLW) comes into force on Friday but not many Londoners will be receiving a payrise.
According to research released today by the Resolution Foundation, workers in Torridge, Devon, stand to gain the most from NLW, with 35 per cent due to have their pay raised later this week, shortly followed by those in Rossendale, Lancashire (33 per cent).
At the other end of the scale, a mere three per cent of workers in Canada are due a pay bump, as well as just six per cent of workers in both Tower Hamlets and Camden.
"Britain's new legal wage floor will be felt throughout the country, but its impact will be bigger in some areas than others," said Torsten Bell, director of the Resolution Foundation. "Relatively few employees will benefit in high-paying parts of Britain such as Canada and Camden, reminding us of the need to see more employers sign up to pay the higher voluntary Living Wage."
Read more: The National Living Wage: A tax on hiring low-skilled workers
From Friday, all workers aged over 25 will be entitled to at least £7.20 per hour. Unlike the voluntary Living Wage, which is currently £9.40 per hour in London and £8.25 in the rest of the UK, the NLW does not have separate rates for different parts of the country.
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Across the UK as a whole, roughly 18 per cent of workers will see their wages increase at the end of the week thanks to NLW.
Bell continued: "Of course pay rises don't come free so employers in some sectors and parts of the country will feel the pressure more than others. That's why it's vital that businesses and national, regional and local government make the successful implementation of the new legal minimum a priority."
A report released last year by the Resolution Foundation and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development discovered that more than half (54 per cent) of employers were predicting that the introduction of the new wage floor would have some sort of affect on their staffing bill, with one in five (18 per cent) saying it would affect them to a large extent.