National Minimum Wage Increase

[good96]

With the NMW increase from April 2025 rising to £12.21 - for someone who works 40 hours a week - that is £25,400!

Can see so many businesses struggling/restructuring/redundancies after this!

That's really funny. I'm sorry you have such a chip on your shoulder. Bless you.

No thanks

What does @hamsterchump contribute to the economy? They seem to be great at nasty sarky snipes at business owners.

Does the world owe you a favour @hamsterchump?

No, does it owe you one?

I've been pointing out that the world doesn't owe failing business owners a living, especially not on the backs of low paid workers. Can you explain why you think it would?

Have a 5m turnover this year- don't think I'm struggling.
Neither are my engineers. And my minimum wage employee keeps working for me as it suits what she wanted.
Not sure what your point is tbh.
Must be envy.

I'm a bit up the chain - but not loads - from minimum wage. Trying to up skill/change jobs but for the moment if I stay where I am then the minimum wage rises will just make my pay closer and closer to minimum wage and it's beginning to depress me a bit.

Exactly this. NOT a nice attitude! It's comments like the one you quoted that makes me glad the NMW has gone up so much! At least SOMEone is showing people that they are worthy - even if (in some cases) their own employer can't seem to! I don't know how some 'bosses' manage to get people to stay with them TBH.

Someone who is surreptitiously dangling the threat of redundancy/dismissal over someone's head (for having the AUDACITY to want a decent rate of pay!) is rather unsavoury behaviour. And some people on here are wondering why some people on this thread are getting pissed off with 'bosses.'

@grumpypedestrian · Today 15:54

Maybe the 'business owners' on here should spend less time on here commenting about minimum wage increases unfairly affecting them, and more time on their ‘struggling business’.

AMEN to that!!! 👏

I work in the voluntary sector and charities often have staff on lower wages. They simply don't have the money to pay more and they can't pass wage increases on to customers as they don't have "customers". They're dependent on grants and other fundraising.

A charity that's supported my disabled DC has had to close recently due to financial problems. The increase in minimum wage is challenging for my current employer. It's a place that people work at because they're passionate about the work and the cause, not for the money.

Obviously people need to be paid a decent amount but it's very simplistic to say that a business is "failing" if it can't cope with wage rises. There are thousands of charities and social enterprises that will really struggle with this but where people want to work despite the low wages.

I think most business owners were saying their business wasn't failing but would find it difficult to fund NMW and employer NIC rises.
That isn't failing, that's understanding simple accounting and economics.

The only people this will help will be the government. Employers will struggle, and employees won’t gain. If they’re on UC top ups etc.they will just lose some of that. 🤷‍♀️

@hamsterchump

No the world doesn't owe me a living. As you'll see from one of my previous posts I've been a net contributor my entire working life - always PAYE employed and so taxed accordingly. Moved house several times and have paid hundreds of thousands in stamp duty as a result (I don't own a second home or investment property). I also financially supported my parents to avoid them falling into poverty and having to rely on welfare.

You?

I think I'm being accused of dangling the threat of redundancy over someone's head because of the nmw going up?

I'm not personally - but it's a fact of life/economics that the nmw increasing will increase the threat- implicit or explicit- of redundancies. Or- it raises inflation as everyone's wages have to go up - and it's all a big merry go round.

There will be no 'levelling' of wages as someone initially suggested as no one will want to do extra qualifications nor manage others if everyone earns roughly the same. That's communism and it never works.

It's all well and good saying if a business can't afford £1,400 they don't deserve a business but you clearly haven't thought what happens when you multiply that by 10, 20, 100 employee's

And let's not forget hospitality and retail, often hiring those under 21 who have seen a 16% increase.
The budget is ok for a micro business but terrible for the small and medium business

The SMEs are not your enemy
All that will happen is minimum wage goes up, your tax goes up and they'll cut universal credit. The only winners are the Government - very few of those on minimum wage will actually benefit

An 8.7% increase to your wage bill overnight (especially after recent hikes in NMW) is hard for small businesses to adapt to. Small businesses are important like in Germany. We really don't want most business owned by billionaires from abroad who remove their industry at will.

Why didn't they just kill the bullshit self employed status whilst they were at it. Paying virtually no NI.

Even weirder when you think about it, they're actually threatening me with getting rid of their MW employee. They profess to "like" her (like a normal person "likes" a washing machine or other appliance no doubt) and I don't even know her and yet they assume that I would care more than they do about whether she has a job and a living! Talk about telling on yourself.

It's almost failing if this increase will send them over the edge. It's pre-failing at best, on its death throes.

So why on earth do you object to a MW increase? If employers are forced to pay more then more people will no longer need to be subsidised with tax credits paid by net contributors like yourself! Why are you ok with propping up failing businesses who can't afford to pay their staff a living wage out of your own pocket?

Yeah you literally said that you might have to do as much to your nice employee only a few posts ago. It was clearly intended to make us with normal human empathy worry for her and appease you. Are you drunk?

Why should failing for profit businesses be subsidised by Universal Credit?

I was stating that that is literally the natural way of things. Minimum wage gets too high (don't forget that pension and NI are oncosts too) and people get replaced with automation. Think self service tills for example.
No I am not drunk, I've been replying to ridiculous assertions on here in between driving between sites 100s miles apart in order to win new contracts to keep my staff in work. I don't have time to be drunk. Too busy keeping people in employment.

I think small businesses that meet certain criteria (ie below x wages for the owners, number of staff, annual turnover etc) should have support. Plenty of small businesses add a lot of value to society in other ways ie innovation etc but don't generate huge amounts of money. It's wild that companies that spin a huge profit can just fall back on staff getting UC top ups rather than pay decent wages; to note though plenty of public sector roles are low paid enough that people get top ups- they should set an example.

The reality here is that the cost to DH’s business is £1.85m in NMW/NI rises. The sector is high t/o but low margins which are out of their control and in the purview of the product supplier. The support they were hoping for the sector did not materialise either. The issues in the sector across the board are the same as in his business so not unique to his. Bottom line is that they cannot withstand this additional cost without something giving alongside the other issues. After working all day on various permutations he’s pretty devastated that the net result is 60 people will be made redundant before christmas and very likely that the UK arm of the business will now be up for sale by the Parent Company.