Minimum wage increases can lead to lower income for employees

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Thrugelmir wrote: »

A SME by definition employs less than 50 people. The vast majority of UK companies employ far fewer than this.

The vast majority of UK companies don't employ anyone at all.

In 2016, there were 1.3 million employing businesses and 4.2 million non-employing businesses.

So as 76% of businesses did not employ anyone aside from the owner - it's probably a stretch to describe those as 'employers'.

And it appears the majority of British workers are employed by large employers, whether they be public or private sector, rather than by SME's.

GreatApe

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

And it appears the majority of British workers are employed by large employers, whether they be public or private sector, rather than by SME's.

Sounds right to me. Not only are stats often crap but peoples understanding and propagation of stats is terrible too. When someone posts most businesses are SMEs what are they actually saying what are the readers inferring the only thing that is clear is that its not clear at all.

Most British workers are employed by large employers.

State employees (6,000,000)
Tesco (472,000)
Sainsbury's (163,000)
Asda (160,000)
Morrisons (132,000)
Rroyal mail (150,000 staff)
John Lewis (98,000)
McDonalds UK (92,000)
M&S (85,000)
Heathrow (80,000. Various companies)
Lloyds (75,000)
Kingfisher (74,000)
BT (72,000)
cooperative group (70,000)
RBS (64,000)
Boots (60,000)
HSBC (48,000)
Arcadia (45,000)
Dixons (42,000)
Next (40,000)
Centica (38,000)
BAE (33,000)
Aldi (30,000)
Specsavers (30,000)
SportsDirect (29,000)
Debenhams (28,000)
Home retail Group (26,000)
TFL (25,000)
National Grid (25,000)
Prudential (24,000)
KFC (24,000)
2 Sisters Food Group (23,000)
Iceland (23,000)
B&M (23,000)
Wilko (23,000)
SSE (22,000)
BBC (21,000)
Lidl (20,000)
GSK (20,000)
Burger King (20,000)
Costa (20,000)
Greggs (20,000)
Poundland (18,000)
New Look (18,000)
Lloyds Pharmacy (17,000)
Home Bargains (17,000)
BP (15,000)
Clarks (15,000)
Amazon UK (14,000)
Bourne Leisure (14,000)
WH Smith (14,000)
Super Drug (14,000)
Vodaphone (13,000)
Martin McColl (12,000)
Nandos (12,000)
Ocado (11,000)
Halfords (11,000)
Brakes Group (10,000)
Arnold Clark Automobiles (10,000)
Direct Line (10,000)
Dyson (7,000)
Legal & General (7,000)
NISAN (7,000)
Anglian Water (4,000)
Thames Water (5,000)
Persimmon (5,000)
Barratt Developments (5,000)
Monsoon (4,000)
Welcome Break (4,000)
Harrods Group (3,700)
McLaren Technology Group (3,500)
Palmer and Harvey (3,200)
Mace (3,200)
Kelda Group (3,100)
Dunbia (3,000)
Virgin Trains (2,900)

and many many more, even some big ones like Barclays with 130,000 staff probably half in the uk but did not include them as a quick google search did not state the uk workforce apart from the total world workforce.

Anyway thats where 9 million of us work out of some 27 million employed workers

Thrugelmir

GreatApe wrote: »

Anyway thats where 9 million of us work out of some 27 million employed workers

Other going off on a complete tangent unsure what you are trying to say. As you failed to respond to my point completely.

GreatApe

I am a great fan of testing. Lets just put the min wage up to £9.50 tomorrow and see what happens

Worse case if there is a a net negative, and it will be a small negative, we just keep it at the same nominal level for 5-7 years so that in real terms its back to where it was today.

I really do believe it will be a net positive

The counter argument that it will destroy jobs is undeserved and even if it is true at least we will have a concrete demonstrable large scale data and example. That would be useful for hundreds of years and the tiny net negatives if it indeed is a negative will be temporary.

I think this falls within a scale and scope that its possible to do without risking much