Dancers, driving instructors and chartered surveyors are among workers who have suffered a 25% fall in the value of their earnings in the past four years, new research revealed today.
Full-time workers in 277 occupations have suffered a drop in living standards since April 2007 averaging 5.9%, when wage rises were compared to inflation, said the GMB.
A study for the union showed that the fall was at least 25% in 11 occupations including compositors, financial technicians, dancers and choreographers and driving instructors.
There were falls of between 20% and 25% among chemists, leisure and theme park workers and public relations officers, and of between 15% and 20% among bricklayers, decorators, hotel porters, labourers and kitchen assistants, the report showed.
The smallest drop in living standards of less than 5% included pilots, chiropodists, electricians, farm workers, florists, furniture makers, librarians, rail staff, teachers, undertakers and travel agents.
Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said: "These figures show that the government's strategy for an economic recovery is in tatters as living standards in the UK drop by 5.9%.
"Things have got a lot worse in the past year as the recovery stalled. Two thirds of the economy is consumer-driven, and the Chancellor must be the only person who doesn't get it. Squeezing wages and cutting jobs will not restart the economy."