In recent years, the UK workforce has been in the news a lot because of how they work. Short lunches and regular overtime are two big problems. However, it seems that the UK employees are starting to see the benefits of their employers' good behaviour.
New government statistics (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=10) show that, excluding bonuses, average earnings have gone up by 3.8% in the year leading up to January 2006. Earnings, including bonuses, have gone up, though at a slightly lower rate of 3.5 percent. During the same time period, from January 2005 to January 2006, consumer prices went up by 1.9%, which is much less than the rate of earnings growth.
This means that the average UK worker is actually better off in 2006 than in 2005. In 2006, spending on consumer goods, especially in stores that don't sell food, and, within that group, especially on clothing, has grown to a healthy level. We are making and spending more money, but the things we buy are getting cheaper in real terms. The UK consumer is having a good time.
Following this trend, financial companies like the high-street bank Barclays (http://www.barclays.co.uk) and others now offer flexible financial solutions for UK consumers to use their newly increased cash flow. Other banks are doing the same thing, and it seems like third-party lenders are also benefiting. For example, My payday loan (http://www.mypaydayloan.co.uk) offers short-term loans to cover shortfalls at the end of the month. After all, no matter how much we make, there is always a way to spend it!
But besides personal loans, people have just as many credit cards as they have for a long time, and they are using them more because they have more money to spend and more ways to get out of debt and credit. The UK consumer is becoming more aware of the options available to them, especially thanks to sites like Moneynet (http://www.moneynet.co.uk), which make it easy to compare financial solutions from different providers. This gives the consumer more power by giving them access to information that, until recently, was only available to people who closely followed the UK's financial institutions and banking policies and offers.
So it looks like we're finally getting paid for how hard we work, and it also looks like we're more aware of money than we used to be. Cash flow has become as much of a concern for consumers as it has been for UK businesses, which are more used to hearing about it. Let the money keep coming in!
Disclaimer
All of the information in this article is just for general knowledge and shouldn't be taken as advice under the Financial Services Act of 1986. Before signing any binding contracts, you should definitely talk to the right professionals and lawyers.
