Earnings and Hours of Agricultural Workers 2010

The latest release from Defra regarding the earnings and hours of agricultural workers was released recently and shows that in 2010 male full-time workers earned £8.20 per hour for a 47.5 hour week. The average weekly wage was £390. Female full-time workers earned an average £7.09 per hour for a 43 hour week. Male part-time workers earned on average £170 per week at £7.65 per hour while females earned £150 per week for an average of £6.93 per hour.

The average Agricultural Wages Board (AWB) minimum earnings/hour for male full-time workers was £7.74, female full-time workers £7.09, male part-timers £6.96 and females £6.57 per hour.

Euro Unemployment Rate Is 10%

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the euro area for March 2010 was 10% the same as February. The unemployment rate in the EU27 was 9.6% the same as February and compared with 8.5% in March 2009.

It is estimated that 23,130 million people in the EU27 were unemployed in March 2010. The estimation includes 15,808 million in the euro area. The increase in numbers of people means 123,000 more unemployed in EU27 and 101,000 in the euro area.

Male unemployment increased from 8.9% to 10% in the euro area between March 2009 and March 2010 and 8.6% to 9.8% in EU27, women from 9.3% to 10.1% in the euro area and 8.5% to 9.4% in EU27. Youth unemployment in March 2010 was 19.9% in the euro area and 20.6% in EU27 compared with 19% and 18.9% respectively. The US unemployment rate was 9.7% in March 2010 and in Japan it was 4.8% in February 2010.

Trade Union Membership 2009

The rate of union membership for UK employees in 2009 was 27.4% the same as 2008 according to a National Statistics survey published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Membership fell at about the same rate as total employment over the year. The rate for all people in employment including the self-employed was 24.7% in 2009 from 24.9% in 2008. The number of employees who are trade union members fell by 163,000 or 2.4% to 6.7 million. For all in employment, the number of members fell by 165,000 to 7.1 million or by 2.3%.

The number of female union members increased 0.2% to 29.5% but the number of males fell by 0.4% to 25.2%. Female union density was higher than males for the eighth year in a row. Both public and private sector membership fell by about 0.5%. The private sector fell to 15.1% and the public sector to 56.6% in 2009.

The nations of the UK had varying union densities. The highest density was in N. Ireland with 39.9%, Wales had 35.4%, Scotland had 31.8% and England had the lowest union density with 26.1%. London had the largest decrease in density with 2.2%, Yorkshire and Humberside came next down 0.9% and the East Midlands with 0.4%.

Taking all sectors into account 46.6% of employees worked in a workplace with a trade union presence in 2009. About a third of emplyees said their pay and conditions were affected by collective agreements. Collective agreements covered about 20% of private sector employees and 68.1% of public sector employees in 2009, a fall of 2.4% on 2008.