While it isn't minimum wage £19k is an awful salary in Glasgow, especially for a luxury retail worker. In my experience larger employers avoid paying the reduce

While it isn't minimum wage £19k is an awful salary in Glasgow, especially for a luxury retail worker. In my experience larger employers avoid paying the reduced minimum wage, although it's more common in small businesses/hospitality or apprenticeships. It's a bit odd to claim that government and retail are only big employers given the presence of the JP Morgan, Barclays, SSE etc. It's true that the UK's policy of pursuing a service based economy has destroyed what was a fairly well paying industrial/manufacturing sector. Recent reports seem to indicate that despite record low unemployment, living standards of the average person are set to drop below much of eastern europe; despite being a much wealthier country.