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!

Labour is weakening family structures, the beadrock of societ and building block of communities. Urging young children to move out of their parents' homes before they're mature enough.

Labour is urging young children to move out of home?

Companies will look to automate more so there are less jobs if the expenses of employing people are too much

You can really see the class divide on threads like these.

It's great of course that minimum wage employees get more HOWEVER the knock on effect is concerning.

If the person doing the most basic job with no responsibility is earning £11.44. The person above them, with more experience/responsibility might be earning £12.21 an hour. If you start paying the person at the very bottom £12.21, it stands to reason that it doesn't work/isn't fair.

Also if a person running a business, makes less profit (through paying staff more) they are likely to put costs up. Therefore the increase in minimum wage doesn't help. If you used to earn £11.44 an hour and spend £11.44 on shopping every day. But now you earn £12.21 an hour and your shopping cost £12.21 - life doesn't change.

You can really see the difference between people who understand how businesses work and those who expect handouts.

Inflation is 2%

The wage increase is 6.7%
Last year, it went up by 10%

If you were a business leader, what percentage increase would you have factored in for the NMW increase?

2% or 6.7%?

That you think all business owners drive a luxury vehicle really highlights the chip on your shoulder (and lack of any real knowledge).

Since when is a working wage a handout?

It's pathetic isn't it.

Without these so called 'lowly unskilled workers' The fat cats and high earners of MN couldn't do their jobs. So yes minimum wage should be raised.

NMW is a hand out? It's actually the opposite of that.

Moaning because it has to be topped up by UC, so presumably expecting to be paid NMW plus whatever UC is so they don't have to make the effort to claim UC.

What are you on about?

I have to laugh at this comment...

The Tories claimed, when Labour bought in the NMW, that it would cost 1m jobs..... the same people who said this seem to have moved to MN....

Employment rates actually went up.... even Osbourne recognised this and also increased the NMW.

Ordinary people with more money in their pockets, tend to spend in the local economy, in the same small businesses many on here are saying will go bust.

Our economy has been flat lining for 14 years, we are poorer than comparable countries.... we've now a Govt that intends to grow the economy via investment.... but lets not give them a chance, lets rubbish them and the country with it and go back to the dark days of Austerity and negative, in real terms, growth.

They do. But no one foresaw a 2% employers NI increase bring introduced at the same time. Or a 16% increase for 18-20yr olds which for some businesses (nurseries, home care providing companies) where the % of this age group is likely to be higher. And then add on the inability to politely ask someone who has just started and is clearly taking the piss to move on, and therein lies the perfect storm issue.

Being a business owner is not about choosing the next generation Mercedes nor is it about paying yourself 25x the lowest worker’s salary. In the main, It’s about being fair, keeping employees working safely, treating customers fairly, offering goods or services at a fair price and hopefully turning a profit having factored in all of the information you had at the time when price setting.

If people were paid a decent wage they wouldn't have to claim UC.

Yep employers not paying a decent salary, pocketing the profits themselves, so people with families have to claim UC.

I know what will happen in my industry. They'll strip it back to the bare bones and have more and more self service checkouts, prices will go up, staff perks will go down. The company never loses out when minimum wage goes up, if people think they won't be impacted by this they are mistaken.

But a lot of MW employees are already "trained up and skilled". I am a Deputy Manager of a Nursery and I only earn 20p per hour more than the rest of the staff, apart from the Manager obviously. I have had to do extra training and I have extra responsibility. What is the point for someone like me. I don't expect we will be able to cope with these MW rises, so we will close and all our families will be looking for new childcare.

Maybe the middle classes will finally do something about the obscene wealth grab by the wealthy when there are not enough plebs to look after their kids then.

Oh thanks for calling me a pleb 😅

Looks like they expect the plebs to be paid peanuts so they can carry on earning their 6 figure salaries.

They'd do that with or without a minimum wage increase.

So you think its perfectly ok to use the law so that you can pay someone who is 19 but works just as hard and is just as productive as a 25yo, a far lower wage?

You can still get rid of anyone who isn't suitable, improving workers rights is about "unfair" dismissal, maybe read up on the new regs before making sweeping inaccurate statements?

As expected I will get a nice pay rise, the downside is prices will have to go up to cover wages + NHI insurance costs.
I work in a supermarket, plenty of extra shifts currently, so although pay isnt great, staff discounts are good which adds up to a lot.