Mr. David Foden:

Looking at the experience in the UK, one can see that the tail of low pay has moved to the right direction in terms of wage distribution as result of what has happened in the past 15 years. In that sense, the minimum wage has made a difference.

It has had some impact and it has provided some protection but, as other witnesses have hinted, we do not know what is under the surface. We know what the statistics show and what has been declared but what about the undeclared, the illegal and the hidden? Naturally, in itself it is difficult to find out about that. It would be very brave to say that because there is now that flaw which is having some effect that the problem has gone away.

I have a final comment which relates to a number of remarks made. We are talking about the minimum wage and about earnings. We have done some analysis of job quality or decent work - if one wants to use that phrase - by looking at other dimensions such as working time quality, prospects, intrinsic job quality, work intensity, physical environment, etc. It is important to note that they do not always congregate in the same jobs; some are good in one dimension and bad in another. Looking at Europe as a whole, some 20% of the jobs in Europe are basically pretty bad on all of these dimensions. On the question of what we need to do, as well as looking at the minimum wage and earnings I think there is a lot to be done in terms of improving working conditions which go beyond wages and which would also address some of the concerns raised.