You cannot seem to do it anymore not one that relies on people that is. Not that it is the people you have to worry about (mainly) but the new rules and regulations. Sold to everyone as help and assistance and growth in my world it is actually the opposite of all those things.
Strengthening the employees rights is all well and good but in strengthening those it weakens business still further. In my business, I now plan to employ no one, no one at all. The work, such as there is, would be done by me, my AI subscriptions and if I actually need people I will offshore it (onshore if possible but I'm not confident about that).
There are now penalties to employment that mean zero hours contracts are going to be banned, that worker's rights to various things like sickness and maternity pay are available immediately to all without any trial period or the usual qualifying period. That sick pay is paid by the employer, not via the state. National Insurance for employers has gone up, the threshold where these kick in has been lowered significantly and minimum wage has increased. All at once, no phasing in and no consideration for the impact.
Small businesses and those who use lots of low paid workers including catering, hospitality and care homes, cleaners etc are all facing huge increases to their wage bills. Larger businesses have already stated they will reduce headcount and consumers will see higher prices. It will be interesting to see what happens to inflation based on that alone.
So, no employees for me then, it doesn't make any sense and the risk reward spreadsheet is looking a little less encouraging. If you invest your own money that's already attracted tax into a venture and it fails do you get your stake back or part of it? Of course not but make it a success and you pay punitive taxes for your trouble.
I see that Companies House is recording record company wind ups. Not surprising really. These changes appear to come on on the next Tax year which is less than a month away and so perhaps we will see something happening then? Growth has contracted and if you look at the adjusted figures not the headline ones, the ones adjusted after the published ones you'll see that most are revised downwards. One is to three decimal places and probably only there to show, technically, that we are not in recession.
Luckily I am not in the position many small businesses are in. If I were I'd have to be looking long and hard about ever taking on new employees. A new employee could, I imagine, report for work the first day and then go on long term sick and you'd have to pay them for as long as that took and no access to compensation for the loss of money and productivity. Who, in their right mind, is going to do that?
I cannot for one minute think this is sustainable. You would never employ anyone. Their simplistic view that AI can do everything is so short of the mark as to be laughable. I wonder when they'll see the error of their ways? When the economy starts to flat line and unemployment starts to become a problem I imagine. "They" say there are a million job vacancies and they've molly coddled the work shy introducing sitting on your arse all day acceptable during the Covid debacle so now you can sit at home with a declared condition and get paid for the privilege of doing so, moves to tackle that are met with howls of derision. Good luck with all of that then.
For my part, I just need to stop the thieving bastards pick-pocketing my money and falsely claiming that my pension is a benefit despite me having paid in for 50 years to earn it. I am glad that I don't have to employ anyone for my business, other than sub contractors. It's the cost of everything going up though that will impact us all.
No comments:
Post a Comment