Valley workers lowest paid in country (From South Wales Argus)

Valley workers lowest paid in country

11:19am Thursday 23rd November 2006

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WORKERS in Blaenau Gwent are the lowest paid in the UK, according to new statistics.

The county's employees earn the lowest median wage - the point in average pay which is exactly half way between the highest paid and the lowest paid in the area.

Figures released by the Office of National statistics show that workers in the area get paid a median wage of just £17,760 a year, the lowest out of 198 areas in the UK.

But many people are paid far less than that - ten per cent of those sampled in the area are paid the lowest wage for a full time employee in the authority at just £11,093 a year, 20 per cent under £13,063, 30 per cent under £15,102 and 40 per cent under £16,697.

That compares with a median wage of £34,848 for the best paid area in the UK, Richmond on Thames.

The statistics are collated by taking a sample of wages through random national insurance numbers from a number of the area's 16,000 workers.

Former council worker Graham Jones, 59, of Ebbw Vale, said: "Every since the steel and coal industry disappeared from the area, there have been no highly skilled jobs coming in.

"The jobs in factories that we have now are repetitive, paying the minimum wage."

Ray Edwards, secretary of Ebbw Vale Ex-servicemens Club, added: "A lot of places in the area pay the minimum wage. Yet some businesses still find it cheaper to ship the work abroad.

"If businesses are going to find workers elsewhere, we are never going to get better jobs for local people."

Blaenau Gwent AM Trish Law said the focus has to be on lifting Blaenau Gwent and other deprived valleys communities out of deprivation.

"This is where the greatest need is and where the greatest concentration of resources should be directed," she said.

"I will throw my weight behind any initiatives that will help reinvigorate and economy and improve the health of Blaenau Gwent, including the recently published Heads of the Valleys strategy."

Out of 198 local authorities, the four other Gwent areas rank as follows:Monmouthshire - median pay of £24,357 (64); Torfaen - £23,467 (79); Newport - £22,559 (104); Caerphilly - £19,973 (179) The pay figures are more bad news after Blaenau Gwent was also declared by ONS statistics to have the worst life expectancy in Wales at an average of 78.4 years for women and 74.2 for men.

Mum-of-two Stephanie James , 32 of Brynmawr says it's down to people's life styles.

"There are nothing but take aways round here and that's all people eat," she said.

Bill Jones, 50, of Abertillery added: "It's all to do with eating healthy and keeping fit and you can't make people do that."

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