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.

Good luck.

I hope you find an employer that recognises your worth and what a difficult job it is.

I loved that show! Not sure Rich Job, Poor Job could work logistically lol but I get what you're saying.

Which hightlights that the problem probably isn't actually wages.

Its job opportunities and housing costs.

Housing has been driven hugely by four things - the rise in the number of second and holiday homes, inefficient use of the housing we have got (older couples an singles in large family homes and families in small houses and flats) and the rise of the buy to let industry and availability of work locally.

Seeing houses as an investment opportunity an a way to make money lies at the heart of cost of living issues. Even with stagnating wages, the population growth we have had and internal migration patterns, the rate at which housing costs has gone up has far outstripped the rate it should have.

Some of the places with the biggest issues with housing are those where young people have left to go to cities! Places like Cornwall and the Lakes. You can add a few quid to the NMW in these places, say 'look we did aren't we amazing', but you aren't solving shit for people on minimum wage in these places. They still haven't got a hope in hell of finding somewhere to live.

Then you've got places like the NE, where theres shit all left. The NMW will go much further here and you've got a decent chance of getting a house if you are employed cos no fucker else wants to live there. But thats the catch, there's no sodding jobs, cos no one invested there. So people are living on benefits and there are no jobs to find. So raising the NMW only serves to hit these people hardest of all because the cost of living is liable to increase so that supermarkets maintain their profit margins. Food banks will have less donations because those in the middle are also more squeezed because their wages HAVEN'T risen.

The issue is about the richest getting richer, but anyone who didn't own property by 2007 or had a significant inheritence since is significantly disadvantaged. 2007 marks the last housing market crash... (the cash rich bought up property whilst those who didn't have mortgages faced tighter restrictions and couldn't get property).

The market crash led to a decade of stagnanted wages whilst there was this huge move into property made possible by the crash for those who had money.

For years its been said that the lack of investiment in provincial towns has massively driven politics. Its what all the red wall/ blue wall stuff was about. People wanting jobs and services (yes like your local pub too) rather than boarded up buildings. The cost of living is part of that but actually if there are jobs and services available people who are struggling are significantly happier because theres still a sense of community. Its about the sense of abandonment by government.

In terms of business, the number of business peaked in 2020. Since then costs have risen considerably and taxes/wages have gone up.

It makes no sense to therefore try and hit small businesses that provide services in local areas harder. It will push people towards more radical politics because of the sense of being abandoned.

I think its note worthy to already acknowledge how many businesses have popped in the last couple of years. These are the latest government figures which were published earlier this month:

Between 2023 and 2024:

• the total business population decreased by 56,000 (1.0%)
• numbers of employing businesses decreased by 18,000 (1.2%), whilst non-employing business numbers decreased by 38,000 (0.9%)
• the decrease in non-employing businesses resulted from a decrease of 43,000 (1.5%) unregistered businesses, offset by an increase in non-employing registered businesses of 5,000 (0.4%)
• numbers of registered businesses decreased by 13,000 (0.5%)

Whilst we might want to improve wages and improve quality of life, we don't actually improve cost of living issues by raising the NMW. It sounds great to a lot of people, BUT IT DOESNT SOLVE ANY OF THE UNDERLYING ISSUES, and arguably it makes them worse in many areas.

Unless the government manages to tackle multinationals and housing then its all totally fucking meaningless deck chair shuffling, which I genuinely think will cause most problems for those right at the bottom.

The col crisis is affecting everyone. More so small businesses who are struggling massively atm. Labour, as usual, don’t read the room and focus on one issue without taking in the bigger picture.

Focus on one issue ?
Which issue?
Struggling small businesses who are no financially viable?
On businesses that can't get staff ?
On families and young people ( alternative thread)
On the nhs, education , housing, climate change?

Everything is interconnected
Not everyone can be protected from harm during a transition to hopefully a better society
So many things are badly broken across the country

I think the person not reading the room is in here

So now you're advocating lowering UK working standards to the level of India or China so we can be competitive? Do you ever think before you type?

What they are telling you is that, if pushed too far, businesses will move their operations to China and other low-wage countries. This then makes the UK staff unemployed, which pays much less than NMW.

You need to think beyond Stage 1.

https://x.com/NoFarmsNoFoods/status/1851530073226056004?t=Odp3f8u7UpfJlJrYxVpdcw&s=19

Farmer considering taking his own life.

I think we need to be very aware of what sectors are affected and what the consequences could be.

I'm currently talking to someone I know well who has been stressed over this for the last three nights who is listening to the budget. He thought he was totally and utterly fucked.

But it looks like they've actually given some relief to those who employ less than 5 people full time.

He was commenting that it's just not worth doing business just before they said that.

The idea that business owners are all super wealthy or incompetent is nonsense. This guy I've seen not only survive but thrive during lockdown when others just curled up and died.

We need to actually understand WHO small business owners are and what they are like and have to offer.

Many companies in the UK are already doing this and it’s never going to change.This isn’t new information.

We have a small business employing 8 staff, 2 on minimum wage.
Every time it goes up we have to raise the other 6 as well to keep the differential.
As a result of this we are having to do away with overtime, resulting in lower productivity and therefore sales and profit.
For the record I work unpaid and DH has not had a pay rise in 9 years.
This is going to be tough ....

Good luck.

I think you have to know small business owners well to truly appreciate how difficult it is to make a success of it.

100%!

When I earned £12,500 around 2000 I bought a nice 2 bed flat for £70,000 with my ex (who earned £20k).

If someone is on NMW now at just under £24,000, there aren't many places in the country where you could buy a nice 2 bed flat for £134k. Certainly not where I bought mine. They're worth about £260k now.

During the time in between, people with plenty of money went round snapping up the £70k flats and reduced the housing stock available.

When DH bought his old house, everyone lived in the property they bought. It's a road full of one bed flats and one bed cluster houses.

Nearly all of those properties are now owned by investors. The effect of this is that no-one really cares about their surroundings. Gardens, frontages and upkeep in general is awful and the whole road looks really run down. All the while people are having to pay at least £1,000 a month for it.

As you say, none of these measures in the budget make it any easier for people to own their own home and provide themselves with the stability of their own home.

It's a shit show all round really.

Anyone who comes up with that shit should be made to work in retail for the whole of December

It always astounds me that people are happy to leave their kids (who they are supposed to love) to be looked after by someone they look down on. WTF is that about!!!

Fucking glad im not on UC Would probably have to miss my dads funeral at the end of November
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05wjtl0

Its people like you that make me wish essential workers had gone on strike during at least one of the lockdowns.

So you agree that PP has been hounded by UC?

On second thought, don’t bother answering.

Can’t be bothered with whinging.

I have this year left a company like that.
Almost exactly the same apart from 18 high end cars not just one. Still in a multi million pound house, and I've heard is thinking of letting yet more people go, if not actively making them redundant, by not replacing those who leave freely.
The workers although paid pretty well, have not had a pay rise of more than half or one percent. Some are just hanging on til retirement in the next 3 to 5 years. The younger ones are getting trained then leaving for better money as soon as possible.
I think that company will go under soon, but it's not to do with wage rise costs or NI costs. More likely the man at the top wants more. Which I do understand, if I was head of a multi million pound company I would want rewarded. But I'd hope I would remember those below me and try to keep them all employed first.

The increase in NMW from £11.44 to £12.21 on its own will be swallowed up many (most?) employers. The problem comes when it is coupled with the employers NI increase in today's budget.

A part time worker (20hrs/week) currently costs the employer £11,900 per year + £386 employers national insurance - a total of £12,286. From April 2025, the cost to an employer will be £12,700 + £1,155 NI - total of £13,855. This is an extra £1,569 the employer has to find - an increase of 12.8%, and this will be much harder for employers to swallow.

This!!

Should be hounding her employer. Do you want both wages AND UC to stay as they were

yes it’s the dropping of the threshold here that’s the real killer. That alone will cost an employer with 1000 staff well over half a million more each year - i expect quite a few redundancies are going to occur as that is the only way to keep within budgets, even dropping peoples hours won’t help.

Totally agree, especially when one bears in mind that any UC top ups also required are funded by the taxpayer.

I think it means self service tills…