Credit Cards - Workers Burn Midnight Oil To Make Ends Meet

By Liz King

NEARLY a third of workers are burning the midnight oil by doing overtime to make ends meet during the recession, according to research from uSwitch.com.

Around a sixth of employees – 2.7m – have taken on a second job to top up their income, while 1.6m have been forced to return to work to help their families pay the bills. Another 800,000 workers have upped their hours from part-time to full time, and unsurprisingly, 7m workers are looking to get a better paid job.

As unemployment in the UK reaches 2.38m, those who are still in work are pulling in overtime to make ends meet. British workers have not been helped by pay freezes, unpaid leave, reduced hours or even working for no pay at all as companies struggle to survive the recession.
BT for example, has recently offered its staff a one year break for an upfront payment of 25 per cent of their salary, while British Airways is imposing a two-year pay freeze on its staff.
Salaries in York, Nottingham, Hammersmith and Fulham and Barking and Dagenham have suffered the greatest reduction in wages, with salaries going down by as much as 4.1 per cent in some regions.

More alarmingly, 1.4m workers that are unhappy in their current employment but feel they can't move due to the financial pressures of the credit crunch. As a result, people may be staying put in jobs that they find unfulfilling as they are too anxious to move. Almost a quarter - potentially 1.4m workers - are unhappy or indifferent when it came to their jobs. But 57 per cent of these will not consider changing roles in the current economic climate - the credit crunch is keeping them where they are.
Louise Bond, personal finance manager at uSwitch.com, said: "With unemployment levels set to rise over the coming months, it's understandable that many workers are forced to put career aspirations on the back burner and focus on keeping the money coming in. In fact, those that do keep hold of their jobs are in the tricky situation of being forced to pick up the extra work left behind by those that are made redundant. Coupled with this, salary increases are fast becoming a distant memory so workers have to find other ways to make up for the lost cash. In order to do this, people's working habits have had to change to increase income levels which includes returning to work, picking up overtime and moving from part to full time work.
"However, taking on extra hours is not the only way to bolster your income. A simple review of your loans, credit cards and current accounts could save almost £375 a year - which could be used to pay off more pressing bills."