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!

Perhaps your fat cat bosses could take a pay cut to pay for your pay rise? Supermarkets make massive profits.

Let's be real, it will be a lot of small businesses that will struggle with it, not just a few.

I still think it's important to pay people properly for their work, though, so agree with the increase.

Unfortunately, capitalism just isn't a functional system and relies on workers being exploited and undervalued, so when they demand better treatment, businesses can't afford it and we end up with just a small number of super-businesses like Amazon.

Which is what they want to happen but it’s going to have to opposite effect because businesses need to now make that extra money to be able to make increased payments. How do they do that? By upping prices and in some cases redundancy and hour cuts will need to happen leaving those on MW no better off

I know a number of people will come on and dispute this, and act all defensive and all that. Crack on. Just means I have hit a raw nerve

Ooh, you're hard!

@Alexandra2001 have you ever had to let someone go?
Genuinely to do it properly and avoid any risk of come back on the company it takes minimum 6 months and a significant amount of time on the manager/team leader. The resources that go into evidencing that as a company you have set clear achievable goals, put in place whatever additional training etc, documenting the issues, diaries to evidence exactly what happened when.
So the whole time a business is paying someone unsuitable, adding a burden on their team mates picking up the slack and the manager has a significant amount of time taken up - not to mention HR resources, external advice for a small business without dedicated HR, someone to take meeting notes.

I agree 2 years is excessive, but from day 1?? It's a logistical nightmare, and it should be 1 year

The Low Pay Commission had warned it could be more than their most recent forecast (£12.10) as earnings growth has been stronger than expected this year.

No, if you read the post, the point I was responding to was about business owners ‘knowing’ that the NMW would rise. They do budget for rises, but unlikely to have budgeted at 16% in one go.

With respect to the new worker’s rights legislation, the issue is following the processes for dismissal correctly which decent employers will do. The cost of advice for this is unavoidable for small businesses who have no dedicated HR dept - all of which takes time and money. All of which impacts the cost of the goods or services.

Well you would be slightly better off if you work longer than an hour/aren’t buying groceries on an hourly basis

It's bleakly funny that people take the moral high ground over small businesses going bust because of an increase in the minimum wage, saying they don't deserve to be in business.

Whilst happily ordering stuff made in China off Amazon etc

Agree.
I have no words for the crap some people are spouting here.

I agree with this. Of course it is a tough ask for some employers, but why should the lowest paid be expected to take a hit on employers' behalf in high-inflation contexts?
Surely an economy where low-paid people are adequately paid is what we should be aiming for - to boost consumer spending, incentivise employment and strive towards reasonable living standards for the least well off.

In 1999 NMW was £3.60. Apply CPI to that and according to the Bank of England calculator that should be at £7.44, and apply RPI then £10.
Middle income earners have seen pay stay well below rates of inflation.
Successive governments seem to think raising NMW will get people off benefits. It doesn’t. Prices increase and this fuels inflation further, they then are under pressure to increase benefits above inflation, which they invariably always do.
And so we go around this merry go round, where no politician has the balls to do what is right.

It's really, really hard, because an increase in NMW means prices will go up. Some companies could easily absorb this by smaller bonuses for the fat cats, but many, many smaller businesses can't.

It's a shame they can't reduce or manage costs of things but they clearly can't.

People should be able to afford to live. That's not a wild statement and it's sad that so many (including me btw) still struggle to get by.

In my last role, the (very small) business was exploring exit strategies. The business wasn't viable and they couldn't increase pricing anymore because they were already the most expensive option. The directors were not fat cats, they always paid above NLW so our cleaner (lowest paid role in the business) was on £17ph.

I was worried I'd be made redundant and was really struggling to find something else I could do. My mam said I could just get a bar or restaurant job until I found something better (that's what my background was in). I had to point out that DHs wage plus me working full time in hospitality on NMW wouldn't pay the mortgage and essential bills. She was so shocked but she's also from the generation who bought their first house for £15k. I think a lot of people are out of touch with how tough it is at the bottom

Yep, my thoughts exactly.

The today programme last week had a small business owner who ran a food production company. She explained for H&S and hygiene reasons no line workers are permitted to bring their phones onto the lines. Everyone is employed on this basis and knows before they start. She had recently employed a new employee who from Day one started using her phone whilst on the line. Aside from the danger and hygiene factor, it created discord among the other workers. So she took the new employee to one side, explained that she had explained to her before starting phones were not permitted. The employee said she had anxiety if she was parted from her phone. Obviously the two are not compatible, but who was at fault here? The business owner for explaining clearly the company rules before the employee started? Or the employee got thinking that those rules didn’t apply to her or for failing to disclose she would not be able to comply? I know who I think was at fault, but the business owner then went on to explain roughly how much she would have to spend asking the employee (who failed to disclose a material issue to her) to leave. This is the issue. Not all business owners are fat cats, mostly they are people trying to do their best and the right thing by everyone.

If it’s any consolation to some on this thread, the new NLW is still some way below the ‘real’ living wage (£12.60) advised by the Living Wage Foundation, which is calculated based on the Minimum Income Standard and is intended as the minimum required for an acceptable standard of living.

Oh this. Definitely.

My point is that no one should be paying a 19yo who is as hard working as a 25yo a sub par wage, pay them what they worth to you.... if you did this, there wouldn't be a 16% pay rise shock!!!

On day 1 rights, there is going to be a lengthy consultation, involving ACAS, Unions and of course Business, there is also going to be a probationary period too.... as usual, worth waiting for the detail instead of over reacting on clickbait headlines.

Its about unfair dismissal, not about being unable to sack someone who is unsuitable.

Also the government recognises that some people like being on zero-hours contracts; moving to guaranteed hours won’t be compulsory on the employee’s part.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67125b70e94bb9726918ee39/zero-hours-contracts.pdf

No clickbait headline here. Just real life experience of the process as it is today.

I can just about pay my very modest mortgage (which is about half the cost of renting ) and the rest of my household bills on £25k. That doesn't include nursery fees or days out/leisure/holidays/medical etc.

So NMW needs to be close to living wage otherwise what's the point? Most workers don't want to have to be financially dependent on others.

Oh i thought we were talking about how terrible things will be for business after the new workers rights bill is enacted.

Not how it is after 14 years of the Tories.

Perfectly put!

Surely even unskilled people should be able to live? Some even aren’t unskilled-many care and nursery workers earn NMW. We have a problem in the UK of low wages and high costs. 25k a year is very difficult to live on.

@Netjets your point about discord between coworkers is a really valid point.
As an employer, You can't say someone is going through the disciplinary process, so all co workers will see is this person with their phone.
If the employee doesn't share details of their disciplinary then it can easily encourage others to break the rules because they don't know what's going on in the background.
One bad apple really can ruin a good thing, and these people sadly need removing swiftly so they can be in a role they are more suited for

Yeah!

Feel better now? Just check what you've bought from China in the last few weeks? As enslavement quite popular there, but that's ok as long as you can buy cheap crap.