One billion workers in fifty countries will earn an average of $685 less in 2022 due to high inflation. Adjusted for inflation, that’s a total loss of $746 billion (almost €680 billion) in real wages. According to Oxfam, last year employees worked an average of six days ‘for free’ because their pay lagged behind inflation.
Women and girls spend at least 380 billion hours each month on unpaid care work. Female employees also often had to work for less pay or stop working altogether due to the heavy unpaid workload in the health sector. They face gender discrimination, harassment and lower pay for work of equal value to men, according to Oxfam.
“Can’t raise cost of living”
“Even when managers ask us to cut wages, they pay huge wages for themselves and their shareholders. Most people work long hours for low wages and can’t control the cost of living. Years of austerity measures and attacks on unions have widened the gap between the rich and the rest of us,” said Oxfam International. Interim Managing Director Amitabh Behar said.
Meanwhile, shareholder dividends hit a record high of nearly $1.6 trillion in 2022. This is a real growth of 10 percent compared to 2021. American companies gave their shareholders $574 billion, more than twice the total real wage cuts of American workers.
