Pay freezes still account for a minority of all pay outcomes monitored by IDR so far this year, but there has been a steady increase in their incidence, from 8% of all awards during the first three months of the year to 14% for the second quarter, and the proportion for the whole of 2020 now stands at 14% as well.
The last time we observed a sharp rise in the number of pay freezes was during our monitoring of awards in 2009, in the midst of the last major recession. That year began with pay freezes accounting for one-in-ten pay review decisions in January and February, and then rising to one-in-four by mid-April. As at that time, a number of instances in 2020 relate to the freezing of pay for executives and senior managers, while lower-paid staff have received pay rises. Examples of this type of approach include the outcomes of pay reviews at BT and Transport for London (TfL).