NMW to increase again next year to £12.21 ph.

[ZoeZee]

If you’ve not had a pay rise this year, despite bringing it up to your employer, and now there’s set to be another 6% NMW increase next year (which is fantastic, don’t get me wrong) the pay gap is narrowing ever more between skilled/unskilled employees.

Skilled and those with MANY years of experience, might as ditch their responsible/stressful jobs (which often keep you awake at night) and look for something that doesn’t have the added responsibility?

Almost 20 years experience means nothing to some employers! AIBU?

Any employers who have a view on this increase, please let me know how this might affect you and your staff.

No.

Patronising doesn't make me right.
Being right makes me right.

😂

Good argument.

My thinking isn’t one dimensional. It’s just not the same as yours.
Yes, all of that can be done, but none of it happens overnight and all of it should be alongside wages rising.
Again, as I have said before, this is not an issue when higher wage earners get an increase, only when the poorly paid do.
It is not my responsibility to worry about how the NHS will be funded, if the local public will shut, whether my increase will push prices up, it’s not fair to expect NMW earners to never earn more because we will crash the system, whilst anyone higher earning than us is totally justified in their increased earnings.

Sorry to hear this, looks like your community will lose a valuable service.

Whilst I'm happy this will help those on minimum wage jobs I can't help but feel so demotivated in my own role. I'm a social worker and work for the public sector (not a local authority but other government sector) I am only on £2.20 an hour more than this
For the stress I'm under and case load I manage it's just not worth it. I know it isn't a job you do for the money but the pressure, expectations and accountability is crazy high :(

But hey, someone who has magic money will swoop in to create a new service because there will be such demand and the service will be so viable.

Christ knows how they'll get the business plan past the bank outlining how they can run the business when the previous one went tits up, but hey, we live in an economy thats always expanding right? Cos thats how its always been.

And stagnation and social and economic decline isn't possible.

Oh wait thats part of the point. The only people who can set up will be those who already have the capital (and no costs associated with loans) and they can come in and cyphen off the profits off shore. Cos thats just so great for us all. Theres no need to undercut anyone. Why would you? Thats just going to hurt your bottomline.

Disaster Capitalism is where its at in 2024.

No one's said any of that. Only a gap in the market will attract new businesses, some will just never be replaced because they are no longer wanted or needed, twas ever thus.

Why should the lowest paid always be sacrificed for the greater good but no one else? Why should they bear all the burden and always take one for the team so Janice can continue to run the cute little coffee shop or pub she's always dreamed of or whatever?

I'm sorry that some small business owners will probably find themselves in difficulty because of this, but low paid workers have found themselves in difficulty for ages and no one cared then and they clearly still don't care now so yeah they're going to celebrate that finally they will be forced to care and put their hands in their pockets.

Besides those same ex business owners will probably be glad of improved labour laws and wage protections when they find themselves back in the labour force. Maybe they'll see the value of them finally then. It really is such a shame so many can't see past the ends of their noses.

Thomas Sowell, gave an example of how not long ago when you went to the cinema to watch of movie there will be young people there with a little flash light to lead you to your seat. Now most don't do this anymore.
More supermarkets are installing self service etc.
These are jobs young people used to do.

Higher minimum wage only results in more unemployment, less innovation, ambition and graft.

Wages should match the value the market places on the amount of productivity generated by the worker.

Labour will soon increase welfare benefits. Pay more people to administer all sorts of benefits. The bloated middle men. Yet those who contribute valuable productivity feel poorer. Eventually they'll be less productive and the country will go bust.

“Unfortunately, the real minimum wage is always zero, regardless of the laws, and that is the wage that many workers receive in the wake of the creation or escalation of a government-mandated minimum wage, because they lose their jobs or fail to find jobs when they enter the labor force. Making it illegal to pay less than a given amount does not make a worker’s productivity worth that amount—and, if it is not, that worker is unlikely to be employed.”
― Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

Do you see the prospect of growing the economy anytime soon?

“Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
― Thomas Sowell

A quick trip to seaside towns and the like is a good example of how minimum wage has destroys economies. Cleaners, waiting staff etc are too expensive for the business so most people fly to cheaper countries wit no minimum wage for their holidays.

Most of these towns are now full of asylum seekers being feed and housed by grafters taxes.

How would keeping a starving class of local workers doing slave labour on below subsistence wages have helped matters?

At the very least I'd expect the holiday makers to object to having to step over their shanty town tent encampments and emaciated, disease ridden children...you know eventually.

I predict on the back of this that lots of smaller businesses will fold, and lots of staff laid off in those that survive. If businesses have to increase wages, then they pass the cost to the consumer. Restaurants and cafes are already struggling because they’ve had to hike prices in line with gas and electric price increases, and decreasing footfall due to cost of living. I had half hoped that Labour might not do too much damage in the five year term they have, but I reckon at the rate they’re going, the country will be on its knees within a year. What a shitshow…

Well said! It appears those supporting this wage increase don't even analyse at all.They're playing into the hands of big corporation, big business, wastage and poverty for the majority.

As opposed to playing into the hands of big and small businesses and poverty at the moment? Do you think low paid workers are ok or something?

Have you not heard about people in work using food banks and not being able to afford rent so having to live with their parents or in shared accomodation forever so they can never really start their lives? What are you arguing for?

Should low paid workers just live in poverty out of the goodness of their hearts to prop up the business owners forever? What exactly makes them so deserving of charity, slave labour and government subsidy?

Great solution

And what will happen when you call the ambulance or police but nobody attends because they've all taken your advice?
Look at teaching for example - thousands have left the profession on the last few years and its a complete shit show getting worse every year. You want to do that with all the emergency services rather than increasing their wage slightly?

It's easy to be sniffy about people's main reason for working being money and not, what, job satisfaction or a lovely glowy feeling if you earn enough of it.....

Also you're deluded if you think most or even many paramedics are on anywhere like £70k plus, that is a tiny minority. But if paramedics aren't a good enough example for you try police officers or there's a poster upthread who is an experienced social worker presumably at the top of their LA banding still only earning £2.20 more than MW....

“Rhetoric is no substitute for reality.”
― Thomas Sowell

“One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.”
― Thomas Sowell, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy

No society, community or country ever grew by imposing minimum wage or dishing out welfare benefits.
Working is not slavery. It's ignorant to use that word in the way you have.
Most people don't stay on the wage they started for the rest of their lives. it will increase naturally but with a high minimum wage, they won't even get a leg on to the employment ladder and remain stuck on benefits.

The wage before this increase wasn't below subsistence, neither was the one before that or the one before and so forth.
Well, they have their minimum wage and queue enter..... no jobs, zero wage, no innovation, no creativity, no ambition so their community is now dead. They abandoned it in spite of the redeeming and clever minimum wage.

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”
― Thomas Sowell

Upskilling or learning a new skill or trade that the market values is what creates wealth and independence. Politicians have instead killed industries, manufacturing and farming. Replacing them with welfare.

Minimum wage laws and welfare programs have, in fact, played significant roles in the growth of several economies by reducing poverty, increasing consumption, and promoting stability.

“The wage before this increase wasn’t below subsistence, neither was the one before that or the one before and so forth.”

This assertion overlooks regional variations in the cost of living and the evolution of economic needs over time.

“Well, they have their minimum wage and queue enter… no jobs, zero wage, no innovation, no creativity, no ambition, so their community is now dead.”

There is little empirical evidence that minimum wage increases destroy communities, reduce innovation, or eliminate ambition.

No, it will increase the benefits bill because jobs will go and unemployment will rise.

covid proved that only a fraction of the population is required to run the essential services of society, the rest of the unnecessary businesses are expendable assets eg cinemas, fast food etc , .;

I've just been looking at Civil Service pay grades, admin roles are very close to NMW, an admin officer who in HMRC has to know a hell of a lot about taxation laws is only earning £1k above annual NMW. I can remember when NMW was introduced, we had to have a pay increase as we were paid well below the legal amount.

So do I. We have thread after thread on here about the squeezed middle and how people are finding it difficult to manage on £70k plus yet people begrudge some of the most vulnerable in society a small increase?

Their kids have to eat too fgs.

The disconnect is real.