COMPANIES are continuing to “feather-bed” bosses at the expense of the wider workforce, data shows.
Chief executives at the top 350 FTSE firms were paid 57 times more on average than other employees last year — a rise from 56 in 2021, according to the High Pay Centre think tank.
Pay gaps also widened further at the top 100 FTSE companies, with CEOs earning 80 times more on average than their staff. Bosses on the blue-chip index were paid a median of £3.91 million each in 2022.
The findings come as many workers resort to industrial action over pay as companies tighten their purse strings.
Research at the think tank found that 76 per cent of people think top earners should not be paid more than 20 times more than low and middle-earning colleagues.
The High Pay Centre has urged greater pay transparency, recommending that firms provide more information on how many jobs they provide at different pay levels.
Companies should also be required to publish figures on CEO pay gaps to their workforce, the report said.
The think tank recommended that outsourced workers, who are often among the lowest paid, also be included in the pay ratio calculations.
TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “Workers deserve a fairer share of the wealth they create.
“Too many firms are guilty of feather-bedding those at the top at the expense of the wider workforce.
“At a time when food and energy bills are sky-high there is simply no justification for such huge pay inequality.
“Corporate excess is bad for businesses and bad for Britain — often encouraging short-term risk-taking and greed over longer-term success.
“That’s why it is vital to have workers on company boards to inject some much-needed common sense — and fairness — into boardrooms.”
High Pay Centre director Luke Hildyard said: “We need a fairer, more equal, more inclusive economy where companies create lots of well-paid jobs for all their workers, rather than a handful of obscenely paid roles for those at the top.
“The pay ratio trends highlight a moment of solidarity during the pandemic when CEO to employee pay gaps narrowed, but that seems to have been lost as gaps have widened to pre-pandemic levels over the subsequent two years.”
