Am i being paid enough??

reeceman

so this is the situation, im a 21 year old male living in Broadstairs and currently travel to Maidstone every day to work, i love my job but keep thinking im not being paid what i deserve.

im the youngest on the firm (and have no problem saying i am one of if not thee hardest working) i travel 55 miles a day to and from work 110 miles a day! i work 10 hours a day 5 days a week and take home £260 (thats after my boss has deducted my fuel £65, as we have an onsite diesel tank - no discount there) i do enjoy my job but do not want to work for less than im worth and worry that if i pack it in i will struggle finding another job in the current economical climate although i have experience in my field of work. but £6.50PH is this right??

Please advise!

~Beanie~

Its hard to say whether you are being paid enough without knowing what you actually do! You are getting more than the minimum wage for your age though.

Traveling distance is irrelevant to your wages though, you chose to take a job 55 miles away.

Can't you look for another job whilst still doing this one?

emmah89

You are getting more than minimum wage. Did you know the distance before you took up the job? If you applied, you chose to travel, i was in a similar situation last year, travelled an hour each way to get to work for so i could gain experience on minimum wage.

Honeypie

The current National Minimum Wage - before tax - for 21 year olds (and over) is £6.19 per hour.

Do you have appraisals at your place of work? Where you can discuss your performance and put forward your thoughts on getting a pay rise?
You could also look for something closer to home/on a higher wage while you work.
How long have you worked there? If it's not too long they may up your wage once they see your commitment to the role and the amount of hard work you do.

emmah89

just to add, you could look for other employment while there, keep an eye out for better paid jobs, at least you will be gaining experience in your employment.

theoretica

Do I gather you are driving to and from work in work's van? Would the difference in fuel cost make it worth your while to leave the van at work and travel by some other vehicle or partly by public transport? Though it could be worse than £65 for 550 miles. It is usualy to look at your hourly wage before deducting commuting costs not after.

heretolearn_2

You are actually earning around £21,100 a year to end up with a take home pay of £265+£65 per week (the £65 is still part of your take home, you can't deduct your travel expenses and call what's left your take home. If you lived next door to the company then you wouldn't have to spend that on travel - pretty much everyone has travel costs to work, some more, some less, and that doesn't change your salary.)

Again you can't look at your take home pay to work out your hourly rate, as you have done. You earn more than this, you just keep less of it because you have to pay tax and NI, same as everyone else. When you talk about your salary/hourly rate you should look at the gross figure (before tax and NI).

This is why you really earn over £20k and this breaks down to £8.11 per hour. That's not bad at 21. You'd earn a lot less in many other jobs.

If you want to know if you are paid 'enough' then you forget about your travel and take home amount etc. You forget what you would 'like' to earn. What you can think about is if this is a fair amount for you, with your level of skills/qualifications/experience etc, doing that specific role. What is the going rate for that type of work? What do other employers pay for that role? What do other people at your workplace earn for it (but there is no requirement to pay everyone the same. More experienced/useful/better at negotiating people might be paid more than you very justifiably.

You are earning a reasonably good wage for your age And indeed better than many people much older than you) and you love your job. Look at the positives and stop feeling so hard done by. You can only feel hard done by if everyone else doing your job earn more than £8.11 an hour.

browneyedbazzi

heretolearn is spot on - you have calculated your hourly pay in a very strange way so the result looks very different to the reality. If you want a more accurate hourly rate calculation then divide your gross pay (before any deductions) by the number of hours you work.

I also agree with everyone who says we can't really say whether you are getting paid enough without knowing what your role is and what others with similar experience/education in the same role are earning. Some recruitment websites have facilities that allow you to put in details of your skills/experience/knowledge and your role and then will give you a breakdown of what you earn in comparison to others in a similar position. You could also talk to others who do similar work and keep an eye on advertised jobs to see where you are.

Pay for a job reflects the skill/effort/responsibility etc of the role as well as the market value of people with the correct attributes. Travel expenses are something for you to consider when deciding whether or not to apply for/accept a job but it's not something you can expect an employer to take into account when setting your pay.