UK retail bosses warn of ‘inevitable’ job losses amid Budget changes
A group of Britain’s largest retailers has warned jobs will be lost and prices will rise due to the national insurance rise announced in October’s Budget.
More than 70 businesses including Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s voiced their concerns in an open letter to Chancellor Rachel Reeves, saying the changes mean price hikes are a “certainty”.
Ms Reeves revealed a £25.7 billion change to employers’ national insurance contributions in last month’s Budget, which would increase the rate of the tax and the threshold at which firms must pay.
Now, businesses are claiming the combined raft of packages announced in the budget including national insurance rises, packaging levies and increases to the national minimum wage could cost the industry more than £7 billion each year.
“Cumulative burden”
“By adjusting the timings of some of these changes, the Government would give businesses time to adjust and greatly mitigate their harmful effects on high streets and consumers,” it read.
“Unviable”
“I will defend facing up to the harsh light of fiscal reality.
“I will defend the tough decisions that would be necessary to stabilise our economy and I will defend protecting the pay slips of working people, fixing the foundations of our economy and investing in the future of Britain and the future of Wales, finally turning the page on austerity once and for all.”
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The payslips of working people are fine if you have a job. Reeves and Starmer do not seem to understand the economy any more than their predecessors. We are now in for a burst of redundancies and inflation and possibly empty shelves and closing supermarkets.
Under the fraud Act 2006, CV falsification can potentially be categorised as fraud by false representation. Section 2 of the Act defines this as an offence where a person dishonestly makes false representations, intending to make a gain for themselves or another or to cause loss or risk of loss to another. The representation must be knowingly or recklessly false. In the context of a CV, this could include false statements about qualifications, experience, or skills. Conviction under this act can lead to severe penalties, including imprisonment.
The cost to a business of taking on a new employee has been hiked by Rachel from accounts. Their rights to holiday pay, sick pay, maternity pay have been hiked by Ang, who left school with more children than GCSEs: she’s also removing zero hour contracts, and making it impossible to get rid of any employee who turns out not to be up to scratch. Smart business owners are going to avoid employing young people – especially female ones, and stick with older fellas with a track record of employment & reliability.
Such retail outlets have been subsidised for a long time by the UK benefit system while paying large sums of money from so called ‘profits’ to their shareholders. In the UK some 83% of working age benefit claimants are working, many in retail, but they are not paid enough by the companies to live. They then have to claim benefits to pay rent/eat/heat their homes.
Retail needs to change its economic model