WORKERS in Britain will miss out on £3,600 in pay this year due to their wages not keeping pace with the average for so-called developed nations, the TUC warned yesterday.

The country’s abysmal wage growth since 2008’s massive financial crash has resulted in 15 years of pay stagnation, with take-home salaries still down 2.7 per cent on pre-crisis levels, the union body said.

By contrast, real pay growth across the 33 members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has averaged nearly three times that at 8.8 per cent over the same period.

The disparity, which has left Britain languishing in the relegation zone in 27th place, will only grow during 2023 as inflation stubbornly remains at a 40-year high, the TUC predicted.

General secretary Paul Nowak branded the country an “international outlier on pay with family budgets being shredded.

“UK workers are being hit by a double whammy of uniquely high inflation and really poor wage growth. Instead of scapegoating workers, ministers must come up with a credible plan for sustainable economic growth and raising living standards.”

The Tory government has repeatedly reached into the Thatcher playbook by claiming the fight to kill inflation must take precedent over real-terms public-sector pay rises, despite the biggest slump in living standards since the 1950s.

The worsening situation has sparked the biggest strike wave to sweep Britain in decades. Mr Nowak urged Downing Street to “get around the table with unions and resolve the ongoing pay disputes.

“If they fail to do so, the exodus of staff from our schools and other public services will continue,” he said.

The warning came after recent TUC analysis revealed that nominal pay growth is only accelerating for the top 10 per cent of earners while it is slowing for the rest of the workforce. 

Staff among the top 1 per cent of earners, with an annual income of at least £180,000, have seen their wage growth more than double from 3.7 to 7.9 per cent since the turn of the year. 

But workers on the median salary, £26,600 a year, saw their figure halve from 9.5 to 4.7 per cent.