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.

Well lucky you having a large HR team. In a small business like ours we have to do it ourselves while taking advice from our HR consultant.

If this employee is on a zero hours contract then if course it's easier. The ppl didn't say she was zero hours and last in. She suggested she was being let go because she was an unmarried childless woman.

Of course you can make people redundant for cost savings. But what you can't do is pick someone from a pool of equal serving employees because they don't have a family, which is what the pp was saying.

Yebbut that is why, she was going to be permanent, full time, salaried after her degree. That's no longer possible. She lives at home, whereas the others all have family commitments.

They're all lovely hard working employees. He's not going to replace her in the foreseeable future.

So she's on zero hours anyway, he can't afford to pay her when she qualifies, and will get rid of her. But you are saying its down to the increase in NMW which hasn't happened yet. Umm OK, course it is. 🙄

And the NHS increase. He'll wait till the spring.

The clients have been affected, it all drips downwards in a domino effect.

Yep Middle class MN hypocrisy at its finest

Yeah and I remember working for £2.50 per hour as a student in the 90s.

At least students weren't taxed then unlike non students.

Gotta love that free market!

Nope, not being unreasonable. Hence why I left my bid writer job to go and work in a supermarket after my second child. No childcare (because of my working hours) no deadline stress, no smarmy Partners to deal with at work and, most depressingly of all, better hourly pay 😂

Aka the poorhouse.

Bet @MintsPi loved the lockdowns

What an awful attitude, just considering your own needs and conveniently forgetting, it was these workers, who worked throughout the lockdowns, how would we have managed without them.
As far as building a large communal home, so they can have 1 room, for these workers to live in, in exchange for their wages, sorry to break this to you, slavery has been abolished in the UK.
Maybe the Conservatives, might consider this proposal, in their next manifesto.

lol I worked somewhere where trainees were being hired at a higher salary than the cohort training them (who had started earlier that year).

What did they do to address the low morale?

That’s right, pizza party! With a colouring competition. (True story.)

I assumed (hoped) MintsPi was taking the proverbial.

I didn’t find it particularly funny.Just illustrating how selfish some people are.

I don’t see why it’s “lucky me”. I’m not management, I’m not in HR. I’m just one of the poor plebs who has to keep applying for my own job.

the way I see it they’ll get rid of who they want for whatever reason but be clever enough to not put that as the reason. And that may be because someone is of childbearing age. They’ll just fiddle interview scores accordingly. How can you prove that your colleagues answers weren’t worth one more mark? It’s so subjective. Of course it’s not right but it happens.

@Blanketyre

'My son is looking at every employee and who has to go. He's decided on an employee who is young unmarried to protect the other two who are married with children'

Your son needs to learn about employment law, because what he is thinking of doing is discrimination.

He is not going to save any money for his business if he ends up being taken to an employment tribunal...

I didn't write this and I agree with you.

Getting my shopping cheaper is far more of a concern.

why? who cares if you can eat or not

When I started my role in 2013 the minimum wage was £6.31ph i think? My salary was £12.50ph at that time. So almost double.

Over the years my employer has given no or very small pay increases per annum. My hourly rate is currentl £14.70 ph. The minimum wage is soon to be £12.22ph. I am working from home, but I'd my employer said come into office my commute cost would basically take me to just over minimum wage at around £12.70ph.

To add to this the employers' senior management is forever trying to add more responsibility to the role, which takes about 6-12 months to train up to a competent level. Many of the staff have taken to quiet quitting. My manager seemed perplexed at this. I explained the above scenario to them and they seemed to take on board that my returning to the office full time would make going on universal credit fairly attractive and allowed me to continue working from home. I guess this is the added bonus in comparison to minimum wage role which invariably require workplace attendance.

But OP is right, I know a lot of people working in semi skilled roles who are being paid little more than minimum wage that are reducing hours (like me), retiring early or going on universal credit.

Are you prepared to pay the true cost of food, products and services though? Because the “true cost” will likely wipe out any increase in the minimum wage, push up costs for everyone else and reduce spending in areas like hospitality where there’s a lot of minimum wage workers.

So we've just lost a big manufacturing contract to a company importing directly from China. This is a public department contract. They say our product is too expensive. The expensive part is the wage costs.

The tender has been going through for months now so this is a general issue not down to RRs budget, but the increase in minimum wage means we have zero chance at being competitive and still manufacturing at least part in the UK.

It seems crazy that it's OK to hike wages up here but buy public service products from countries with cheap wage costs. What chance do we have?

So many people are affected by this narrowing pay gap. People just aren’t going to put up with it quietly quitting. Not even bothering to learn these “semi skilled” jobs. This Budget has shown exactly who Labour value, and it clearly isn’t people who work hard to improve themselves, take risks to actually provide opportunities.

The other concern is the move towards levelling up of the 18-21 NMW. Let’s face it, who will employ a still maturing 18 year old rather than a more steady/settled and life skilled 28 year old for the same wage? I’m surprised that more isn’t being made over the effect this will have on young people - many of whom already struggle to get that first job.

Outsourcing our carbon footprint and ignoring human rights issues as well.

The only way we will stop this is by stopping demanding cheap goods.

"The other concern is the move towards levelling up of the 18-21 NMW. Let’s face it, who will employ a still maturing 18 year old rather than a more steady/settled and life skilled 28 year old for the same wage? I’m surprised that more isn’t being made over the effect this will have on young people - many of whom already struggle to get that first job."

This is such a valid point. The whole point of the age bands was so younger workers could get a chance, a foot in the door to build up experience. Youth unemployment will rise.

My friends son has just started his three year apprenticeship. Worrying times.