Irish employees suffered a 3.9% pay loss last year as a result of wages lagged behind inflation, according to a new Oxfam research released in recognition of International Employees’ Day.
The charity claims that this equates to a real revenue loss of €2,107 and 8.3 days of unpaid work.
According to Oxfam, Irish employees suffered a total loss of more than €5 billion.
According to the report, due to inflation, workers globally experienced a 3% salary drop and on average put in six days of unpaid labour in 2022.
The charity claimed that although salaries for workers are falling, top-paid CEOs in the UK, US, India, and South Africa saw compensation increases of 9%.
“We recognise that figures from any one point in time can be exceptional in some regard but what we are highlighting is a very clear and alarming trend towards widening pay scales and resulting inequality across the globe,” said Oxfam Ireland CEO Jim Clarken.
“This International Workers Day, most people across the world find themselves working longer for less and struggling to keep up with the cost of living.
“Perhaps most alarmingly, we’ve seen progress in reducing extreme poverty grind to a halt with extreme wealth and extreme poverty having increased simultaneously for the first time in 25 years. Poverty is once again on the increase,” Mr Clarken said.
In order to correct the imbalance between executive salaries and ordinary workers who are struggling to make ends meet, Oxfam claimed that Ireland urgently needs to have a national discussion about more efficiently taxing extreme wealth.