Educational charity Success4All has been accredited as a living wage employer by the Living Wage Foundation.
To gain accreditation, the charity committed to paying its workforce a minimum hourly wage of £10.90, which is higher than the £9.50 per hour government minimum for those aged 23 and above, and the newly announced national living wage of £10.42, due to be implemented in 2023.
According to Success4All, it made the commitment because nearly one-fifth (19.6%) of all jobs in the North East pay less than the real living wage, which equates to around 189,000 jobs, and it wanted to deliver fair pay for hard work.
The real living wage is calculated according to the cost of living and provides a voluntary benchmark for employers that wish to give their staff a wage they can live on, rather than the government minimum.
Busola Afolabi, operations manager at Success4All, said: “Each year the Success4All team works hard to deliver services that engage and empower the most vulnerable communities in the North East. We are proud to be in a position where we can offer a living wage and above to all our employees, as we believe paying our employees fairly and investing in their welfare is simply a no-brainer.”
Katherine Chapman, director of the Living Wage Foundation, added: “We’re delighted that Success4All has joined the movement of almost 11,000 responsible employers across the UK who voluntarily commit to go further than the government minimum to make sure all their staff earn enough to live on.
“They join thousands of small businesses, as well as household names such as Burberry, Barclays, Everton Football Club, who recognise that paying the real living wage is the mark of a responsible employer and that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay.”