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MILKING THE RECESSION
For instance, according to the FGS Consulting report, a sales assistant in Cork, Limerick or Galway earns just €2,500 more per annum than a sales assistant in Belfast. A sales assistant in Maastricht in the Netherlands will earn €7,500 more per annum than their counterpart in Cork, Limerick or Galway. A sales assistant in Dublin earns just €1,000 more than their equivalent in London, and they lag €3,000 behind the wage of their counterpart in Maastricht. When examining relative rates of pay between different cities or jurisdictions it is also important to bear in mind the cost of living in each city. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Worldwide Cost of Living survey published in February 2009 rated Dublin as the 13th most expensive city in the world to live in. By comparison London was ranked 27th. Payroll costs form a relatively high proportion of operating costs in the retail sector not because wages are high but because it is a labour intensive business. The minimum wage rate is an important protection for low-paid retail workers in Ireland. A lower minimum wage rate (such as exists in the UK) only facilitates employers in driving down the pay rates of low-paid workers. That is the main reason for the relatively small difference in pay rates for low-paid workers here as compared in the UK. It’s not that Irish workers are paid well, it’s that workers in the UK are paid worse.