The Gig Economy

Thrugelmir

GreatApe wrote: »

I dont agree one bit if a job is needed then it will continue the employer will just have to increase its prices to cover it.

Doesn't work like that though. People only have so much disposable income to spend. Higher prices therefore does not equate to higher revenue. Possibly resulting in a loss of sales entirely instead.

Tesco's cannot sell products at 2% above the recommended retail price either. As would lose trade to other supermarkets. There's fierce competition in this sector. Where dog eats dog.

CLAPTON

GreatApe wrote: »

yes I can imagine a company which employs say 300 part time workers moving to 150 full time workers. But is that a bad thing? What if it was 300 part time workers on state support going to 150 full time workers not needing state support and 150 needing to find a new job.
Currently a lot of people stay as part time workers as they dont attempt to look for better pay. If its a huge problem having it as one fixed amount then maybe there can be a part time or hourly element so instead of £250 per month

if there are plenty of jobs avaialble then of course being made redundant is no problem : however, if there are plenty of job available why haven't people who want to work full time already taken them?

I dont think so, at the very lowest end it adds some 15% to employ someone in the min wage full time. There aret that many people on the very lowest min wage the vast majority earn more and mostly min wage jobs are necessary if tesco needs shelf stackers on min wage the additional cost of this £250pm would add some 2% to the price of their goods in their stores tesco is not going to go out of business due to this

economic works at the margins so,
tescos of course won't sack all its self stackers but it will probably reduce their number

I dont agree one bit if a job is needed then it will continue the employer will just have to increase its prices to cover it. Going back to the tesco example what is more likely that tesco increases prices by 2% or fires its 400,000 staff and closes its business?

economics works at the margins : the demand for most goods and services are price sensitive : increased price will lead to lower demand

the idea is not an overall increase in employers NI its to make it a flat fee per employee for each company that needs to pay more there will be a similar paying less. If paying more taxes is going to encourage more black economy then those paying less is going to encourage less black economy

yes it will probably allow for winners and losers

GreatApe

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Doesn't work like that though. People only have so much disposable income to spend. Higher prices therefore does not equate to higher revenue. Possibly resulting in a loss of sales entirely instead.

Tesco's cannot sell products at 2% above the recommended retail price either. As would lose trade to other supermarkets. There's fierce competition in this sector. Where dog eats dog.

well whats the difference in say mandating a min wage or a higher min wage the same applies yet we have not seen much evidence that the current min wage is destroying jobs if anything long term unemployment is only 1-2% in the uk despite the min wage

GreatApe

CLAPTON wrote: »

if there are plenty of jobs avaialble then of course being made redundant is no problem : however, if there are plenty of job available why haven't people who want to work full time already taken them?

many people simply fit their consumption to meet their pay they do not strive for more. So I wonder sometimes if the creation of the very low pay work like teachers assistants who seem to earn on average just £12k a year is actually harming the economy. that is to say if the government got rid of them altogether would these people on average find work that was closer to the media full time wage of some £35k rather than go find another £12k a year job

economic works at the margins so,
tescos of course won't sack all its self stackers but it will probably reduce their number

If tesco could function with fewer staff why are they not already doing it?
Of course you could argue if staff costs go up 15% maybe tesco will try to automate more jobs in their sector but is that not another good an increase in productivity?

eonomics works at the margins : the demand for most goods and services are price sensitive : increased price will lead to lower demand

but this proposal was not to increase taxes it was a proposal to take the current employers NI contributions and raise the same sum from a fixed fee per employee rather than a % of their wages. So low paying employers like tesco would pay more but higher paying employers would pay less. If there are price increases in tesco there would be price decreases elsewhere

yes it will probably allow for winners and losers

the current system seems to favor employers taking on low pay low hour staff and there is also the problem of the self employed and sole company directors not paying employers NI.

Pennywise

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Lower than used to be. Basic rate tax was 33% when I started work. We all want state pensions, the NHS. So we need to contribute fully.

But when IT was higher, VAT was a lot lower, as low as 8%. There was no IPT. NIC used to be lower. Total tax revenues are probably higher despite the low headline rates of IT and CT. All smoke and mirrors.

CLAPTON

GreatApe wrote: »

many people simply fit their consumption to meet their pay they do not strive for more. So I wonder sometimes if the creation of the very low pay work like teachers assistants who seem to earn on average just £12k a year is actually harming the economy. that is to say if the government got rid of them altogether would these people on average find work that was closer to the media full time wage of some £35k rather than go find another £12k a year job

it seems relatively unlikely that a lot of people happily live on 12k when they could easily get 35k jobs
I don't recognise the type of people you seem to know.

If tesco could function with fewer staff why are they not already doing it?
Of course you could argue if staff costs go up 15% maybe tesco will try to automate more jobs in their sector but is that not another good an increase in productivity?

they did by employing them part time

but this proposal was not to increase taxes it was a proposal to take the current employers NI contributions and raise the same sum from a fixed fee per employee rather than a % of their wages. So low paying employers like tesco would pay more but higher paying employers would pay less. If there are price increases in tesco there would be price decreases elsewhere

I have to say I see no advantages, but only disadvantages of such a policy.

the current system seems to favor employers taking on low pay low hour staff and there is also the problem of the self employed and sole company directors not paying employers NI.

it seems not unreasonable for low paid staff to be taxed less both at an individual level and company level

GreatApe

CLAPTON wrote: »

it seems relatively unlikely that a lot of people happily live on 12k when they could easily get 35k jobs
I don't recognise the type of people you seem to know.

plenty of capable smart people could work more productive higher pay jobs but they dont as what they earn seem to be enough for them to get by (perhaps with the aid of tax credits). this also applies to people who effectively work sub min wage jobs, people like aspiring actors and singers etc

I recall reading a BOE report on productivity and it seemed to be saying one of the reasons for low productivity was the large expansion in the low productivity low paid sectors and specifically highlighted the huge increase in low paid teaching assistants. My guess is if those jobs were eliminated (there were no teaching assistants in my day iirc) these people would find jobs paying at least what they currently make and some will make a lot more.

CLAPTON

GreatApe wrote: »

plenty of capable smart people could work more productive higher pay jobs but they dont as what they earn seem to be enough for them to get by (perhaps with the aid of tax credits). this also applies to people who effectively work sub min wage jobs, people like aspiring actors and singers etc

I recall reading a BOE report on productivity and it seemed to be saying one of the reasons for low productivity was the large expansion in the low productivity low paid sectors and specifically highlighted the huge increase in low paid teaching assistants. My guess is if those jobs were eliminated (there were no teaching assistants in my day iirc) these people would find jobs paying at least what they currently make and some will make a lot more.

no, I think it says that if we eliminate the current load of low paid jobs, then they would be unemployed : of course productivity would rise.

GreatApe

CLAPTON wrote: »

no, I think it says that if we eliminate the current load of low paid jobs, then they would be unemployed : of course productivity would rise.

If someone is a teaching assistant on £12k pa and there are jobs advertised for £30k is there no gain overall in this person leaving the teaching assistant job and getting the £30k job?

people like factories can be made more efficient and productive. If the only positions available were min wage jobs you might be right but there are plenty of jobs available for much more than min wage and if someone leaves a low productive min wage job and gets a higher productive higher pay job that is a net benefit and increase in productivity

The only counter is perhaps that every single person on a low wage job is only capable of low paid work which is of course nonsense

CLAPTON wrote: »

no, I think it says that if we eliminate the current load of low paid jobs, then they would be unemployed : of course productivity would rise.

why would they be unemployed?
Try to think of the opposite, lets say I advertise a job that pays just £1k a month and a bright kid applies to that job and once in the job they just plod along and make ends meet by having low outgoings. Well what If I fire this person why does he have to or is only able to get another very low paid £1k a month job? Why cant he get a £2k a month job? And do you really think that if I fire someone all mighty me has somehow permanently created +1 unemployed person in the economy. That is stupid.

Humans are just another resource. Business takes human labor and rubs it with other labor or materials and outputs something of higher value. If I have no more value for someones labor that does not mean that labor just sits there unused it just gets used by other businesses.

GreatApe

a more productive workforce can come about when there are jobs advertised for more pay than existing jobs. So someone on £1k a month can go get a £2k a month job and increase their spending

However there are thousands perhaps millions of people in jobs who could get better paid work if they were not stuck in a routine. For instance a high class grad in mathematics might get a call center job. He could either try to find better employment and move on or just be content in a low wage job and just reduce his needs/wants. This person has fallen into a 'productivity trap'. He could go get a better job but his employer could also fire or go bankrupt to force him to speed up the process.

Each time I was made redundant I went onto work that way about twice the pay. Had I not been made redundant I would probably just have kept on with the job. So being fired lead me to be more productive and earn more income

I feel this might be true more widely. Going back to the teaching assistants if the say 100,000 teaching assistants (I have no idea how many there are) were fired then I do not think we will see +100,000 to the unemployed stats instead these people most of them will find work or start their own companies or go self employed at wages a good deal better than the £1k a month they are on.