Irish workers hit most by pay cuts

ALMOST half of Irish workers interviewed in a Europe-wide survey have seen their pay cut in the past year, compared to just 14% across the rest of the EU.

And just 8.6% of workers here saw their pay increase over the period compared to an average across the EU15 countries of 28.4%.

Eurofound’s “European Working Conditions Survey” for 2010 was compiled from interviews with 44,000 workers in 34 countries.

The results are mixed for Ireland.

Of those surveyed here, the percentage of people who believe their job is at risk is significantly higher than much of the rest of the continent.

The statement “I might lose my job in the next 6 months” was put to the thousands of participants in each country. Here in Ireland only 60.4% disagreed with it compared to a EU15 average of more than 70%.

The statement “If I were to lose or quit my current job, it would be easy for me to find a job of similar salary” was also considered. Almost 70% of the participants here disagreed and just 18% agreed, compared to an average for EU15 countries of just 47.2% who disagreed and 33.1% who agreed.

The survey also considered the treatment of European workers while at their jobs. Participants were asked if they had been subjected to verbal abuse while at work in the last month.

While the average for Europe was 11.1%, the figure rose to 13.1% for Irish women. Similarly, while the number of respondents who said they had been subjected to bullying or harassment at work in the past year was low here at 5.5%, it was still higher than the EU average of 4.7%.

However, Ireland by no means fared badly in all of the questions. Commenting on the statement “I am well paid for the work I do”, only 28.7% of workers disagreed here, compared to 29.6% across the EU15 countries.

When asked whether work affected their health, only 10.6% here said it did in a negative way, while 11.7% said it did in a positive way and the rest said it did not affect their health.

Europe-wide 22.4% said work affected their health negatively and just 7.3% said it did so in a positive way.

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