Sadiq Khan on the increase to the London Living Wage.Over 130,000 Londoners are set to receive a 10 per cent pay boost, as the London Living Wage rises from £11.95 to £13.15.The benefitting workers are employed by the capital’s 3,500 organisations signed up to the Living Wage Foundation (LWF). The foundation sets a new ‘real living wage’ every year, which is higher than the Government’s ‘national living wage’. The latter used to be called the minimum wage.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Well I think it's great news, I'm really excited by the increase from last year, 10% increase
00:04 in the London living wage. The real living wage since I've been here has gone up by more
00:08 than 40%. The numbers are really important. The numbers of employees now paying the living
00:14 wage has gone up six fold since 2016. What that means is those Londoners who are receiving
00:21 the London living wage, there's 130,000 of them, they'll receive a pay increase which
00:26 is really really important. But the numbers of Londoners across our city, more and more
00:31 are now receiving the living wage which is fantastic. When I first became mayor, 20%
00:36 of Londoners were receiving less than the London living wage. That's now been reduced
00:40 to 13% and I'm encouraging more and more employers, more and more businesses, more and more of
00:45 those in the public sector to pay the London living wage.
00:48 What's the argument you make to those employers and organisations because obviously it's not
00:51 easy to give all of their workers 10% pay rise like that.
00:55 Yeah, one of the things that we've got to recognise is businesses and employers are
00:59 not unreasonably a bit nervous about having another additional outgoing which is an increase
01:05 in pay for those receiving the London living wage. By the way, it doesn't mean everyone
01:08 in the firm gets a pay increase. It's only those who are receiving the London living
01:11 wage who will be paid £13.15. What I say to them is speak to others, people within
01:19 your sector who are already paying the London living wage and the evidence is whether you're
01:24 a big employer, medium employer, small employer or a micro business, paying the London living
01:29 wage, the rural living wage, leads to improvements in recruitment of staff, improvements in retention
01:36 of staff, less people being off but also greater productivity, staff work harder and stuff
01:42 so it's a pro-business thing to do as well as ensuring your workers can make ends meet.
01:49 What are you saying to the government when it comes to supporting businesses to give
01:52 their workers a fair pay? I'm really worried about particularly micro businesses and the
01:56 difficulties they have. So what I'm saying to the government is there's things you can
01:58 be doing to support micro businesses in relation to paying the London living wage. The rural
02:02 living wage could be around procurement, it could be in relation to support around those
02:06 on benefits. There are things the government can be doing to support businesses and employers
02:10 do the right thing.
02:11 .
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