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.

There are some care homes that make huge profits. Children's residential care homes charge local authorities thousands a week and local authorities have to pay because children have to live somewhere. They basically buy another property with the profits, have 1 or 2 children in, have 3 care staff on duty over 24 hours and charge massive fees. It's appalling. Then these children turn 18 and the profiteering residential children's homes turf them out. No money when they are adults.

'But nope this is actually all about the stranglehold these huge multinationals have and how they are able to direct the political narative so people just bleat on about wages as if this is the solution to the problem.'

Too true. Bezos could afford to pay more to the hundreds of thousands of Amazon workers at or close to minimum wage. He doesn't. So their low wages are topped up by benefits while he's the 3rd richest bloke on the planet.

The NMW of 77p will increase a worker on NMW by £30 per week £133 per month

For the government this will reduce working benefits by millions £, which is a saving. It will also increase tax incoming as the extra £1600 will be taxed at 20%

So you are not “hounded”?

Of course they aren't hounded.

Try being an employer if you want to know what being hounded is like!

working benefits are morally wrong, people should be able to work full time without the need for benefits. It has become the norm for low wages though so people accept this situation

Are you are politician? Because this is what a weasely politician would post.

All I wanted to ask was how exactly PP was being hounded by the the evil UC.

It seems she is not.

Due to illness one month my wages fell, I had to go in, despite having a full time job until I was deemed to be working at capacity again.

I can’t go out of the UK on holiday without giving notice due to new rules.

i have had two benefit entitlement checks, involving months of statements from all my accounts. That is whilst working full time and then getting my income each month.

i consider that excessive, and i consider it hounding.

If you read some of my earlier posts you will see I was.

I had a business and some staff. My business was a great idea, I loved it, but it was not financially viable.

I see so much of this. I think a lot of MN underestimates how many people and in what industries are on minimum wage.

My business supplies supermarkets with an item that a huge percentage of you will buy on a weekly basis. In our contract with the supermarket they know how much we pay our staff and what the costs are. The deal we have (and this goes for an awful lot of farmers) is that when our costs go up they will pay us more I.e a guaranteed margin. Staff costs are our second highest cost. Guess what’s going to happen to the items you buy in the supermarket.

This is the issue for me, smaller businesses I think should get subsidies or an agreement that as long as they meet certain criteria staff can have their wages 'topped up' via a fair and easy process. The big multi million/billion pound industries relying on their staff claiming benefits is crazy and should be what people are outraged at as appose to small businesses. They could easily factor in decent pay and make £££££s.

People on benefits can and are hounded, my DB was in ITU and he got sanctioned for missing an appointment; as we were looking after his phone and post tried to speak to them to explain why he missed it and was told he didn't have anyone on the authorised to speak to them list (whatever it's called). Was sorted in the end but certainly wasn't welcome stress.

If you can’t afford to pay your staff £12ph, you shouldn’t have a business

Sad though isn't it, some small businesses provide valuable services or are innovative and beneficial to the country, some sectors there just aren't huge amounts of money in them though. Instead of the gov giving huge contracts to huge businesses, be nice if there were more grants or subsidies to some of these businesses where they provide value and help drive the country in areas that are allegedly a focus such as innovation, STEM etc.

Yes

And as I've said before, people that make ridiculous statements like this are happy to buy from all over the world, rock bottom wages and unethical working practices and all.

We have to compete for global tenders. With NMW going up we are becoming increasingly uncompetitive, so all the contracts go to China and India who often pay terrible wages with unethical working practices. People on here crowing about employers deserving to fail will no doubt twist themselves in knots trying to justify why they also buy cheap crap from countries with awful working conditions.

@NewstartOct2024 that's appalling.. I've never forgotten (although I forgot his name 😬) sir gerry Robinson talking about care homes for the elderly.

Owners arriving in flash cars and telling over night staff off for making themselves a sandwich.

Silver farms and extremely lucrative.

I imagine the same for the children and are these the same "care homes" where they are prayed on by county lines and abusive rings of men trafficking them??

There’s also no incentive for anyone working for NMW to be good at whatever they do, ie quicker, more efficient etc. when someone with no experience has to be paid the same.
Before minimum wage good employers would increase pay as people gained experience which gave employees a reason to be productive.

You can be out of the country for up to 4 weeks.

Just now much travelling outside the UK do you think someone who is not on UC can afford?

And you had to show in the JC and provide bank statements for checks?

In exchange for a healthy monthly payment?

How much UC do yo get? You don’t have to answer, or course if it makes you feel uncomfortable for some reason.

Providing bank statements isn't hard fgs. And how many bank accounts do you have?

But it's OK for the people working in the nurseries to continue to struggle?

It's not hounding and it's not excessive. It's reasonable when you're giving out significant sums of money per month. Imagine this money were being given to a public body, you would want that body to prove they required the money, what the money was going to be used for and have check in points to show it was still required and/or not being mismanaged, right? Why are benefits any different?

But they are going to keep struggling because the actual problem hasn't been addressed!

No, but the concern is that the government raise it without upping the financial support or payments they make to early years providers; it makes it hard for an already struggling sector to absorb the additional costs. Of course these sectors should be properly funded, same with schools etc, TAs absolutely deserve a pay rise, if its coming out of existing budgets though then for many schools the option is to cut hours even if they're desperately needed.

I don't think people are against better pay for anyone, they just recognise the issues that the government won't bother to address in conjunction with it. It's also surely fair for other bands above to get a proportionate rise too.

Shame they can't do the same level of hounding and balance checks to say, Thames water.

Why should nurseries get special treatment? They are businesses and often very lucrative ones.

If they can't afford NMW then they need to close, as posters have suggested other businesses do.

Quick, look over here!

I agree