Price rises forecast

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32774, 26 November 1971, Page 2

Price rises forecast

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Nov. 25. ' Direct salary and wage costs of equal pay would be between sssm and sBsm —probably nearer the top of the scale—according to the Commission of Inquiry into Equal Pay. The commission’s report estimates that this could give rise to an increase in the over-all price level of 1 to 1.5 per cent. The effect on the consumer price index was likely to be somewhat greater than on the general price level because of the basic consumer and ser-

vices produced in femaleintensive industries. “We cannot be more precise than to suggest that the consumer price index could rise by between 1.5 and 2.5 per cent when equal pay is fully implemented,” says the report. According to a Labour Department spokesman in Wellington today, 113, or 14.5 per cent of awards, provided equal pay in certain circumstances. Of the rest 184, or 23.7 per cent, had separate pay scales for male and female employees, and the other 431, representing 55.4 per cent of awards in force, were

considered “single sex awards”—they covered employment normally done by one sex only. The awards do not cover Government departments, where at April this year 31,262 women were employed and receiving equal pay. At the same time there were 91,157 male employees In the service of the Government Of 778 awards and agreements in force at the end of last year, only 50 or 6.4 per cent, provided full equal pay for women. A number of awards, however, gave partial or conditional equal pay.