National Living Wage

I think there are a lot of unintended and tricky consequences to flow from the new living wage. Here’s a public sector flavoured one:

A Government website has been forced to remove a set of graduate job vacancies which did not meet its own recent National Living Wage (NLW) requirements.

Careers advice site, Graduate Fog, reports that Graduate Talent Pool pulled the ads after it “questioned the legality” of the salaries offered.

The news has come just two weeks after the NLW was introduced for all workers aged 25 and over, having been set at £7.20 per hour. However, the changes were announced nine months prior to this which should have given the site time to set wages accordingly, reports Graduate Fog.

One of the vacancies which was on the site before being deleted was for a digital/content marketing internship with a London-based agency. Graduate Fog reports it advertised an hourly wage of just £6.94.

A further two – for a graduate analyst internship and a graduate marketing and research internship with a recruitment agency – stated monthly pay of £1,100.

Although the number of hours was not specified for either for these two, granting they were the standard industry 37 hours a week, the hourly wage would have been just £6.84 per hour, again, below the legal NLW for those over 25.