A £15,000 discrepancy, a widening gap between manufacturing and service workers and gender inequality.

These are the results of a survey out showing that there is a huge pay gap between the best and worst paid full-time workers living in the North West .

People living in Trafford are the best paid, earning up to £15,000 more than those living in Blackpool.

The survey was by ManpowerGroup in a new series of regional insights into UK pay trends based on the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings from the Office of National Statistics.

Average annual pay for those living in the region rose 0.4% between 2013 and 2014 – slower than the rate of increase in the UK as a whole, where pay rose 0.6%. At an average of £29,900, annual pay in the North West is more than £3,000 lower than the UK average of £33,500.

However, the North West’s major cities have seen sharp increases in average earnings. Manchester and Liverpool have seen full-time pay rise by more than 3% since 2013, four times faster than the national average and around seven times faster than the North West region as a whole.

The cities are almost neck and neck in the pay stakes but, with average annual full-time pay of £29,200 compared with Manchester’s £28,900, Liverpool is slightly ahead.

With production industries employing nearly 370,000 people in the North West, more than in any other region in the UK, manufacturing is a big driver of prosperity and pay growth in the region.

Full-time pay in the North West’s manufacturing sector rose by 3.1% over the year to £32,400, far outstripping the overall increase in pay across the region as well as the UK as a whole.

Greg Hollis, Operations Manager at Manpower, comments, “Manufacturing has long been a key part of the North West’s jobs economy, and the increasingly skilled nature of manufacturing work has had a profound impact on pay in the region.

As the industrial processes carried out by employers in the region have become more complex, so the salaries have risen in line with the level of specialist skills required.

ManpowerGroup’s analysis has revealed a marked and increasing pay gap between the region’s men and women. Average pay per hour for men in full-time work rose 0.9% to £15.47 whereas women in full-time work saw their pay fall 0.1%, to £13.40. The growing pay divide means that men in full-time work are now paid on average 15% more per hour than women.

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