New Minimum Wage Causing Problems For Businesses
Corner shop owners are set to increase their prices of everyday items to help cover the costs of the new minimum wage.
A survey, carried out by one of the supplier of corner shops ,Palmer and Harvey, says that one third of owners will increase prices and lower staff hours. one quarter say they will need to make staff redundancies to cover the costs of the other staff.
The head of Palmer and Harvey’s, Chris Etherington, agrees with a higher minimum wage. However, the higher cost means that they will be less jobs altogether as some small store can afford to pay the staff, leading to redundancies.
The government hopes that the wage increases will help families who have in-work poverty problems come out and help more disposable income that could help boost the UK’s economy.
The prices increases have lead companies to change existing business plans or think of new ones to help cover costs. Clothing store next have said they are willing to increase prices by as much as 6% to help cover costs of staff wages.
Complaints on Indeed, a job review site, talk about how the wages at corner shops are not satisfactory and they should be higher. With the new minimum wage, this may be be a problem for much longer. Giving them staff more money for working the same amount of time. However, the changes may be a problem too, possibly meaning they could get paid off or work longer to cover other people shifts who have been paid off.
The new minimum wages are:
- Apprentices: £3.30/hour
- 16-17 years old: £3.87/hour
- 18-20 years old: £5.30/hour
- 21-24 years old: £6.70/hour
- 25 years and older: £7.20/hour
These Wages were brought into effect on April 1st, seeing millions of over 25’s and younger workers receiving wage increase. These increase still aren’t as high as the Living Wage Foundation’s recommended wage of £8.25 per hour.
