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!

I've bought nothing from China in the past few weeks. Or months. Sorry to hear you'll have to pay your employees properly soon, that must be a blow.

Well yes everyone should be able to afford to live, raising wages isn't the best solution to this though unless it's in conjunction with other things.

Well let’s agree to disagree shall we? Because just like the policy introducing VAT on education, the real-life, non-theoretical impact will be felt the most by the people who can least afford it.

Well you are in the tiny minority. Not many people manage to live by buying solely from the UK or other countries paying decent wages. But good for you, genuinely.

Hopefully your user name isn't inspired by your real life, made in China Chillys bottle.

Like i said, business said the introduction of the NMW would lead to 1m job losses, employers will always seek to hold down wages, using any spurious argument to keep wage increases lower or better still non existent.

I don't know why you're saying that like it's a bad thing.

Have you not seen how much everything else has gone up in the last couple of years? How are people on minimum wage supposed to pay their bills and feed themselves if their wages don't rise? It still won't fill the gap.

It's not a bad thing. It's just the knock on effect is rarely considered and accounted for.

I have colleagues in skilled jobs with years of experience who used to earn at least 30% above NMW. From next April, they'll need a pay rise to increase their salary up to NMW. That's if they haven't left to get an easier job that pays the same, if not more.

My business supplies supermarkets with an item most of MN will buy on a weekly basis. Supermarkets know our costs and it’s written into our contracts that when costs go up so does the price we get. I.e a guaranteed moving margin. Labour costs are our second highest cost. This has become a very common contact in the agricultural world.

Guess what’s going to happen to all of the food you buy in the supermarket.

Regarding 0 hours that’s going to make things incredibly difficult for some businesses. We have a number of retired people in the village who’ll love being able to pick and choose when they work. We have one chap who flies off to Spain every few months and his grandson then does a few hours. Suits them, really helps us and everyone is happy. They definitely don’t want to be committed to 16 hours per week. (A job we also offer so they could have that if they wanted.)

It is considered and accounted for. The Low Pay Commissioners base their recommendations on a huge amount of economic and qualitative evidence that includes precisely these factors.

They won’t be committed to 16 hours a week if they don’t want them. They would simply have greater protection if the flexibility has previously been all on your side.

@mnreader

Tough for business who have ti suck up less profit perhaps. Welcome to 2024

Well maybe. But probably also fewer jobs. That's not necessarily better.

Raising the NMW isn't what will shift the return from capital to labour. Technology is mainly what determines that. (And with AI adoption, it's likely to shift very heavily the other way).

I think it's a positive thing but it does start to erode the value of other salaries. Teachers and nurses starting out don't get much more than a full time NMW salary.

They want people to invest in Britain then do all this. It's all very well saying they need to blah, I agree, I agree who wouldn't Jeff bezos needs to pull weight but the reality is many smaller businesses will really suffer.

But we were in the EU then. The economic landscape is very different now.

But good luck if you need a nursery place for your child so that you can go and work. Or you have elderly parents that require care in their own home because this thread alone tells us you might struggle.

Quite. happily for them they can exploit lower paid workers overseas instead

I’m unclear how perpetuating a situation where workers don’t earn enough to afford an acceptable standard of living in our country either is meant to redress the balance?

Because people expect others to adhere to standards that they don't personally support themselves.

@Kta7
Maybe now is not the time after all the hits everyone has taken? They couid have achieved the same by rising the tax and ni threshold.

If they expect people to work full time for them and not pay a genuine living wage they’re not really a viable business are they ?

You might think that's high, but people who were earning 25,000 20 years ago are now on over 50,000.
We're not any richer, the costs for houses, cars, food and living expenses have increased that this is still basic living like it was 20 years ago.

You could be forgiven for not realising who was in power for the last 14 years couldn’t you ?
And funny how some posters seem to have grown a social conscience lately.

I repeat again. We supply supermarkets with food you all (or most of you buy)

we pay slightly over NMW. Would love to pay more. Supermarkets know our costs. (and they base our wages bill on NMW). When our cost go up or down the price they pay us goes up or down. Labour is our second biggest bill. This is very common in the agricultural/food industry now.

The cost of food produced in this country has rocketed recently and this will only make it worse.

Please don’t tar all business owners that they are evil, greedy people paying the least they can get away with. Many of us are trying very very hard in incredibly difficult circumstances to produce something consumers will like.

Not sure what the answer is then. People can’t afford to live, mainly because of insane rent and mortgage costs, private landlords won’t reduce rents, same people won’t countenance rent caps, government isn’t able to build social housing where it’s needed because of nimbyism. What’s needed is compromise I guess and people won’t do that.

I also repeat, the government itself only pays NMW to a significant number of its employees and expects them to be able to use MS Office applications to a good standard, make decisions, supervise others, deal with the public and a whole load of other skills that aren't what you'd expect of 'entry level jobs'. Plus little chance of overtime or bonuses to boost pay.

@Persephonisima the answer is build more houses
Not bloody great mansions - but proper housing that is affordable, terrace and townhouses should be prioritised
None of us need a huge house, I look at my PIL that are in the same 3 bed mid terrace house they raised 2 children in, it seems tiny but it was perfectly sufficient
Then I look at family members with ensuites to every bedroom, a spare bedroom, an annexe - it's utterly ridiculous and simply not needed.