During the latest autumn budget, Labour announced a number of changes relating to the employment landscape, including increases to National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW), as well as changes to National Insurance (NI) contributions.
Wages
Labour has announced that their long-term plan is to abolish minimum wage age-brackets, creating a single adult rate in its place. The autumn 2024 budget has seen the first stage of this plan taking effect.
It was announced the NLW, the rate that applies to adults aged 21 or over, is to increase from £11.44 to £12.21 in April 2025, which is a total increase of 6.7%. Additionally, it was announced that the NMW for employees aged 18 to 20 would increase by 16.3% to £10 per hour, and employees ages 16 to 17 (and also apprentices) will see minimum wage rise by 18% up to £7.55. A more significant increase of wages for younger adults showing Labour’s vision to bring wage parity across the board.
It is likely that these changes will be felt harshly by the working economy as a whole. However, small businesses face significant risk, particularly those that pay staff NLW/NMW, as they will have to absorb significant increases in wages. Notwithstanding this, all industries are likely to be impacted as those paid more than NMW/NLW will desire wage increases to avoid real term decreases in their salaries. Additionally, industries that employ younger staff, such as retail and hospitality, will have to stomach much larger percentage increases in salaries and some retailers may struggle to simply absorb costs (due to lower profit margins) without making significant changes to the workforce, such as cutbacks and redundancies. This may serve as a deterrent to smaller businesses from employing younger staff due to the significant increase in costs moving forward.
National Insurance
It was announced in the autumn budget that employers’ NI contributions will rise to 15%, which will be an increase of 1.5%. Potentially more significant is that the threshold upon which NI contributions are payable will be slashed by £5,000 down to £9,100. This will lead to a significant number of casual and part time employees being captured in the decrease in eligibility, and employers’ NI bill likely increasing as a result.
There is, however, some good news for smaller employers as employment allowance will increase from £5,000 to £10,500. This effectively works as a NI rebate system and will mean that small businesses may not see any increase in their NI bill. They could in fact see a decrease overall.
If you are considering your businesses’ situation and approach to the changes that will be implemented in April 2025, it may be sensible to take advice to allow sufficient time to implement any necessary changes in time for the changes coming into effect next year. If you would like to discuss matters further with our team of expert employment solicitors, please contact us on 0161 696 6170.
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