Not even superheroes could escape the Universal Social Charge in this month's pay packet

Image: Nathan Lewis via Flickr

THE DIRECTORY ENQUIRIES service 11850 has said that there has been a surge in calls throughout January for numbers relating to financial services and counsellors.

An 11850 company spokesperson said that number requests for psychologists were up 10 per cent; up 15 per cent for psychologists, up 18 per cent for counselling services and for banks and financial institutions by 20 and 15 per cent respectively in this week alone. He speculated:

The January blues this year appear to have been compounded by further woes as the nation are anticipating a blow to their pay cheques caused by the new Universal Social Charge.

The figures were released just as many people were paid their January wage on the traditional pay day of last Thursday of the month. Followers of TheJournal.ie were on the whole noting a marked drop in their pay packets this month.

Here were just some of the tweets we received when we asked if people had noticed a decrease in their take-home pay today:

Pics: Twitter.com

However, 11850 did note that people using their service were looking to bright spots on the horizon. Requests for numbers of hotels was up 12 per cent, travel agents were up 14 per cent and airlines were up 6 per cent.

The number of people looking to get in contact with astrologists went up 16 per cent.

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