Earnings

The average (median) gross weekly wage for a full-time employee in the North East LEP area was below the English level in 2020 (£516.50 compared to £589.90) and was the lowest among the eight English core city LEP areas. 

The North East weekly wage increased by almost 8 per cent between 2014 and 2020, a lower rate of growth than in England as a whole (up almost 13 per cent). The median North East weekly wage in 2020 was over £15 below the median in 2019.  The latest statistics relate to the pay period that includes 22 April 2020, when approximately 8.8 million employees in the UK were furloughed. The estimates in this bulletin include furloughed employees and are based on actual payments made to the employee from company payrolls and comparisons with previous years' data should take account of this.

Within the North East, the median gross weekly wage for a full-time employee varied by local authority of residence and workplace:

• It ranged from £495.00 for Gateshead residents to £556.40 for Northumberland residents
• it ranged from £475.30 in South Tyneside workplaces to £575.00 in Newcastle upon Tyne workplaces

The differences between resident and workplace wages are influenced by the commuting of higher paid workers across local authority borders. Where a place has a lower workplace-based wage than residence-based wage it indicates a net out-commute of higher paid workers and where the reverse is true it indicates a net in-commute.  This can also be seen at constituency level where the median gross weekly wage for a full-time employee:

• Ranged from £444.50 for Washington and Sunderland West residents to £655.30 for Hexham residents
• ranged from £431.80 in Easington workplaces to £578.90 in Newcastle upon Tyne Central workplaces