NMW to increase again next year to £12.21 ph.

No point in the Treasury’s economists doing the detailed analysis to complete the impact assessments to accompany the budget, they could just pop on Mumsnet to hear about all the dead hamsters and grannies that a NMW rise will cost.

Hyperinflation here we come!

Wages have been stagnant for years as employers generally increase their profit and personal income.
Of course business owners should reap some rewards but it's gone too far, my boss today loudly announced that somebody may have to go if the NMW goes up as he left his £3 million pound house and parked his £100 grand Merc outside whilst his warehouse workers are walking around with holes in their shoes.
Try to get someone to come and do your gardening or decorate your house, they want £30 and hour minimum and still some question £12 per hour.
At least if you earn a bit of extra money you can choose how to spend it, without it you can't.
As for those who say leave then I'm afraid these Victorian attitudes to employees have become the norm.

So we can add an influx of abandoned animals into the mix then.

We are going to have an influx or new parents on here in the next year or 2 crying over how expensive childcare is, that they can't go back to work and will lose/halt their careers as a result. It really is just kicking the can down the road.

Minimum wage going up is great. But isn't employers NI supposed to be going up as well? I think small businesses may find both a struggle.

That means that I will be getting a pay rise, along with other veterinary care assistants, the admin and finance department, the pharmacy department and the cremation department. The veterinary nurses will be on about 50p more per hour and YOU will be getting more expensive veterinary charges for your pets.

As a lot of jobs which are NMW now are nursery workers, care workers etc, this will just mean redundancies or closures. Nurseries in particular are hanging on by a knife edge.

I'm confused OP.
Is your grievance with the NMW increasing? Or the fact that more seemingly " skilled" employees are not getting pay rises, to in your opinion ( I think) justifiably bridge the pay gap between skilled and unskilled even further?

it does show most companies cannot make profits without cheap labour otherwise they would pay what people are actually worth, overall then the businesses should fold if they cannot survive without cheap labour or they need to rethink their business model

With respect, if you’ve invested tens of thousands and have never had any salary or dividend from the business, it’s not a viable business. That’s not to say it doesn’t have value in the community, as you say, but you’ve essentially got a non-profit that you think is a business.

Stop right to buy
Restrict additional home ownership
Restrict foreign purchases of properties
Sort out empty properties and bring them back into use
Restrict buy to let
Fund social housing

I think theres something new incoming in a bit to stop zero hr contracts being allowed

The main reason governments (of any party) are so keen to increase NMW is because it lowers benefit payments. Most of those on NMW jobs claim UC. Increasing their hourly pay, lowers the benefits that are paid by the state. That is why it keeps happening. If those same governments actually cared about the lower paid they would increase UC entitlements by the same amount or inflation or anything really, but surprisingly enough, they don't do that.

I think they do need to do something else but I don't know what
Every year min wage goes up and for a few months I have £100 after bills and it's really nice
Then the council tax goes up, then fuel, then gas/electric, then food, then broadband etc etc and back in the same situation as I was before my wage went up

I was on the NMW of my country until recently. They just lifted the wage here a few months ago. All it meant, really, is that my annual pay increase was less.

It's demoralising as I'm still being paid less, but expected to work my tail off - more so than when I earned double that rate. I'm on not much more now, and have realised just how much difference more money makes to your life. Also people treat you differently. The respect earning a lot vs min in a support role - well - some people do think they're better than you.

Tbh it's inspired me to pull back, not work as hard - and look for better paying jobs. There's literally no benefit in stepping back to NMW. It's not a fun place to be & not necessarily less stressful.

This ^^

After years of blood, sweat and tears through three years of covid, we are looking at the very real possibility of closing. That’ll be 10 people out of work plus knock on effect on other small businesses that we buy from including some who work out of their own homes.

I’ll be bloody gutted. Despite investing tens of thousands and years of unpaid work, we, the owners, have never taken a single penny out of the business, which serves our community.

I’m sick of Starmer and Co portraying every business as if we were all exploitive multinationals deliberately screwing over workers. This govt is killing us.

It's shit. The idea behind nmw is a noble one but all it does is put people like you in as shit a position as you were before because the problem hasn't changed just got more expensive.

Think you are missing ops point. I don't think she was being derogatory to those on nmw.

Threads like this make me sick, I trained for 3years to become a hair stylist, just to earn minimum wage, unless you can work for yourself it's not worth it and in my area it's so oversaturated it's not viable, so I went back to retail.
I have 20+years of retail experience, but you try getting more than 16 hours work, they give all the spare hours to 16year olds because they can pay them less. All this will do is force companies to cut hours so their precious profits are not affected, so for people like me on NMW it will mean fuck all at the end of the day, i'll still struggle to make ends meet just like I always have.

I actually jumped ship from my nursing degree during Covid because I got an offer from a company that would pay me more than a qualified staff nurse makes without the added insult of the Government shitting all over me and my colleagues. My salary has only risen since then. I literally sit about and click buttons and look at spreadsheets and organise/run reports on data all day and don't get screamed at by patients/relatives/colleagues all day.

It's insulting to the people on the ground that put up with that shit that they also get paid barely anything for it.

They were already rich when they bought it!

not all care homes are privately funded. And with councils in debt, they don’t increase care fees.