THOUSANDS of people working on Christmas Day will be paid less for their shifts than a decade ago, a TUC study released today shows.

The Tories’ present to key workers means nurses’ real wages are down more than £2,700 per year, local government care workers are down more than £1,600 a year and chefs are down more than £1,050 per year, according to the research.

Police officers have seen a 12 per cent drop, while waiting staff, doctors and medical practitioners, cleaners and caterers have all taken a hit during a decade of Tory rule.

The TUC said that many working on December 25 were already on low pay, espeically in sectors like social care.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Many of the key workers who are bracing themselves for another surge of Covid cases are earning less in real terms than they were a decade ago. That is not right. 

“While many of us are tucking into the turkey, thousands of key workers will be hard at work on the front line, many of them dealing with staff shortages as a result of the omicron variant.

“But their pay awards are falling way short of what they should be, especially in a cost-of-living crisis.”

Ms O’Grady urged that the pandemic “must be a turning point,” adding: “2022 should be the year that the government finally gets wages rising across the UK.

“They can start by giving our public service workers a proper pay rise, and by raising the minimum wage to £10 an hour.”

The TUC called for funding into the public sector so that all outsourced workers are paid at least the real living wage, or parity with directly employed staff doing the same job.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham told the Star: “For far too long, low wages have been the scourge of the British economy.

“Unite will continue to oppose employers’ efforts to offer below-inflation pay rises when the RPI rate of inflation is currently 7.1 per cent, which is why we continue to build workplace strength to get profits out of the boardroom and into workers’ wage packets.

“Unite has won fairer pay for thousands of employees in recent months, but we’re not resting and are determined to win even more for our members in 2022.”

Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Fuel, food and energy bills are skyrocketing. Yet pay lags well behind the cost of living for public sector workers including those on the front line.

"The government’s New Year resolution must be an inflation-busting wage rise across the UK's public services."