Becoming A Real Living Wage Employer

The call came as part of an event held at Sunderland's Business and Innovation Centre (BIC) to mark Real Living Wage week and update the city's Living Wage action group.

In Sunderland, there are 83 employers accredited as Real Living Wage employers with 37 of them headquartered in the city and around 10,000 workers have been uplifted and are now receiving the Real Living Wage.

Current estimates are that 17,000 city workers receive less than the Real Living Wage, which has just been updated to £12 an hour outside of London.

Speaking at the event, City Council Cabinet Secretary Councillor Paul Stewart said: "The council is a Real Living Wage Employer and our ambition to become a Real Living Wage City has been a key priority of our Community Wealth Building plans.

"These ambitions are about supporting residents to move out of poverty and reduce their dependence on in-work benefits. There are also tangible benefits for Real Living Wage employers in terms of increased staff morale, wellbeing and retention.

"Work should pay, or at least pay enough for people to live on, but this isn't always the case as we witness people with multiple jobs having to resort to using foodbanks and struggling to pay their bills.

"We very much want to make Sunderland a Real Living Wage city and we continue to encourage other local employers to help us meet this goal."

Major employers based in the city such as the University of Sunderland and Gentoo are in the scheme, alongside City Council staff.

Sunderland was the first council in the North East to commit to the scheme and has paid employees the Real Living Wage recommended by the Living Wage Foundation (LWF) since 2014. Following accreditation with the foundation, the council has also committed to seeing staff working for council contractors being paid the Real Living Wage.

Speaking at the event, BIC's Chief Executive Paul McEldon said: "We have signed up because we see it as an investment in our staff. We all know that staff are our greatest asset and by paying the Real Living Wage we are able to show and prove that they are very important to us."