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!

@MidnightMeltdown · Today 01:41

Well if the business needs them in order to function, then they are 'worth' whatever the going rate is. This is like saying, I'm not paying 250k for a house because I think it's it only 'worth' 20k. The trouble is that you aren't going to get a house for 20k, and you still need somewhere to live!

If businesses aren't willing to increase wages then who cares if the staff are laid off? What's the point in them working a 40 hour week and be being barely any better off than people staying at home on benefits? If workers can't afford to live after working a 40 hour week then what is the point of the business? Just so that the owner can make a profit?

Exactly! As has been said throughout the thread, you can't be running your business very well if you can't pay your good, reliable, hard-working staff a decent living wage.

I live in the Midlands, and I know several people who had their own business in the 1980s and 1990s, and in the 1990s, they paid their workers £1.75 to £1.90 an HOUR! (I was on £7.50 to £8.00 an hour in the mid-late 1990s, working for in a secretarial role to put it in perspective!) The National Minimum Wage came in (in the late 1990s,) and they were FUMING because they had to pay their workers more than an embarrassingly paltry £1.75 to £1.90 an hour.

Said people had villas in Spain and Florida, 3-4 high performance cars, golf club and gym membership, (top end ones.) Also top end designer clothes and jewellery. Yet they were FUMING that they had to pay their staff a DECENT WAGE. Not great, but decent! Not all employers are like this of course, and some DO struggle to make ends meet, but as has been said, you need to look at where you're going wrong if you can't pay your staff a good wage.

Also as I said, everyone should be offered a minimum 16 hour a week contract. If they want 8 hours - or 4, or even zero hours - then they can have that, but most people don't want that. My DH works 28 hours a week in hospitality, and got his contract when he started (2007.) He is one of the last people to ever get a decent amount of hours on an employment contract in his industry. Not long after that they started bringing in zero hours contracts.

Zero hours contracts are just an excuse for an employer to use people when it suits. Come in and do 50 hours a week when we're busy, and then fuck off when it's quiet. I have known people get just 2 to 6 hours in a week, for several weeks on the trot, and then suddenly they want them for 35 hours! People can't live on 2-6 hours a week FFS. And so they end up claiming Universal Credit, and then when their hours go up again, it messes up their finances terribly.

My DH has applied for a few jobs over the past few years (as he gets a bit fed up at work now and again,) and every last one has said it's a 4 hour or 8 hour a week contract (a couple said zero hours!) He said 'I'm a grown man in my 50s with bills to pay, I can't take a 4 hour a week contract!' (It was NOT mentioned in the job advert! Only at the interview stage.) They said 'oh but most weeks you will probably get at LEAST 18-22 hours.' He says 'well give me a 20 hour a week contract then.' They say 'Ooooh no we don't offer those sorry.' DH says 'well we're both wasting each others time then. Have a nice day.' Then he walks out.

Pre year 2000, workers would have walked out and gone on strike for this shit. Offering wanky zero contracts ONLY, or if you're 'lucky' you may get a 4 hour one!

Fucking joke.

Good on the Labour Government for raising the hourly minimum pay!

I don’t know that it’s ‘communist’ to want everyone to be able to afford at least a minimum acceptable standard of living.

I’m sure most of the business owners on this thread want the best for their staff too and are just forgetting to include any reference to this when making their very valid points. But some of the language/terminology (eg ‘value’) being used about actual hardworking human beings leaves a lot to be desired.

@LikeWhoUsesTypewritersAnyway
"My DH has applied for a few jobs over the past few years (as he gets a bit fed up at work now and again,) and every last one has said it's a 4 hour or 8 hour a week contract (a couple said zero hours!) He said 'I'm a grown man in my 50s with bills to pay, I can't take a 4 hour a week contract!' (It was NOT mentioned in the job advert! Only at the interview stage.) They said 'oh but most weeks you will probably get at LEAST 18-22 hours.' He says 'well give me a 20 hour a week contract then.' They say 'Ooooh no we don't offer those sorry.' DH says 'well we're both wasting each others time then. Have a nice day.' Then he walks out."

Erm, if he's a grown man with bills to pay he's going to have to pop his big boy pants on and suck it up in his existing role - everyone gets 'a bit fed up now and again'. 🙄

It goes up every year in April and the predictions for next year were already £11.65 - £12.18, and they are putting it up to £12.21, it's not a real shocker

Exactly, and forecasts have come with the caveat that earnings growth has been strong this year so eventual rate (which has to be at least 66% of median earnings) could be even higher.

Rumpoleoftheballet
Yes because every single small business owner is loaded and doing just fine 🙄

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 ?

Has it ever occurred to you that some business owner do pay their employees a decent wage? It still doesn't mean the business owner is loaded and doesn't care about their staff!

Why on earth do people on this thread believe every small business owner is only out for themselves and couldn't give a shiny shit about anybody else. Not everyone is the same, regardless of how much you all trot out the same response.

Because they are ignorant.

Lots of people choose to live close to family for childcare reasons too. They might be ' limiting their earning power ' but we know childcare costs a fortune and moving away might not be a workable option.
Lots of very valid reasons people don't want to move on.

I consider myself and many of my colleagues lucky. Work in food retail and our branch management has been very good to the staff and given many of us much better contracts. However now the store has been told to cut the hours a lot and it's become really hard when people are on holiday and someone is off sick. With less staff on higher contracts rather than more staff who on smaller ones, there is noone to call on to cover this. Businesses are relying on part time staff to do extra hours, as and when needed. Having full time staff costs more money. That's the business model in retail/catering etc

I have sympathy for small business but not the bigger ones with bosses on million pound bonuses, who can easily afford the better contracts. People can't afford to work part time these days.

He’s probably autistic. It would never enter his head.
But why can’t he find a job within 20 miles. Anything would do.

@Persephonisima and sorry to appear pessimistic but i cant see the current changes making things any easier for him. changes to employee legislation, higher business costs (due to wage/NI/corporation tax increases and probably interest rates (due to inflation)) and going to put businesses off employing people. All the business owners we know have seen a downturn in business for a month or so which they have put down to people waiting to see what this government does in the budget.

They might be valid but as the old saying goes, fortune favours the brave.

If people choose to have children when they can only afford to work by relying on family close by they are generally - depending on where they live - limiting their earning opportunities.

Childcare costs is probably the reason many ( like my own son) are choosing to never have children. If someone can access a few days or even a whole week for nothing ( as many of my old friends have done in the past ) then why move away and then end up paying thousands a month for a nursery. It is a factor in this never ending cycle of homes costing too much to buy or rent ( and run) and everything else going up
It all feels so depressing to me to be honest and I do feel that today's younger folk are being screwed over for just wanting the basics and a decent wage to cover the costs.
Just my opinion though

Our company pay for qualifications and training to near minimum wage staff and I can tell you most don't want it. They don't want the extra hassle, don't want to invest time, don't see it as a career that requires extra effort and many can't study despite major hand holding and support. They leave before they have to do it to the next job.

Maybe you won't but if you leave a gap in the market then someone else will replace you and your employees will get other, similar jobs. Get over yourself, your business might be very important to you but it's not half as important to anyone else, it's entirely replaceable.

Some small business owners are really proving their over inflated egos on here! No you are not the messiah of whatever widget production and no you are likely not God like in the amazing way you treat your employees on minimum wage or close to it.

Exactly this. ^ There are some breathtakingly ignorant and clueless posts on this thread! And the comments are clearly coming from a place of privilege, OR from people who don't work. (Possibly both!)

Definitely, so many small failing business owners on here kidding themselves and thinking they deserve to be propped up with subsidised labour for some reason!. Sorry Sharon but you're not the real MVP, maybe move the hobby business back to the spare bedroom or go out and get a job.

It really shows what a lot of employers really think of their workers, they probably think we should pay them for the privilege of slaving for their "dream".

Exactly this! Has it ever occurred to the business owners on here that perhaps if ordinary people had more money in their pocket they might be able to afford your overpriced widgets. That actually keeping the majority of people poor on at best subsistence wages is not actually good for business.

Exactly. Deluding themselves that they are the "wealth creators" and rewarding themselves accordingly, while ripping off the workers actually doing the work.

But it's not crap wages. Minium wage increases have outstripped inflation massively and it disrupts the entire economy. He barely takes more than his staff as it is.

Of course you should have to produce evidence that you are not unfairly dismissing someone, what's the alternative? that we just take your word for it? Because you're so much better than those you deign to employ?

I really think you should stop posting, you are really making yourself sound like a terrible person here.

Where are you getting your "facts" from? Wages have stagnated for years.

Here's a clue because you clealy lack one. If people are paid better then they might actually be able to afford to shop locally for once.

Unfortunately all the increase does is cause many employers of unskilled workers in things like retail,catering etc to hire under 21's as their cheaper to employ;currently 4 full time workers under 21 will cost a business just over £21000 less than 4 full staff over the age of 21.