Redundancy and pay rise

Every year we get a pay rise and every year people are made redundant (60,000) since 2008, some are voluntary but many are not. Pay rise announced in Jan with effect from April, with amount based on performance.

Much as I sympathise with those being made redundant, the business needs to survive and make a profit. Its owners need profit, otherwise the business is of no use to them. It's remaining workers need it to survive so that they have jobs. The business is paying a set of workers who it no longer needs, and who are a drain on profit, so it intends to make them redundant. At the same time they have workers they very much want to retain to make profit, so they are giving them pay rises. Not only legal, but quite sensible if you are an employer. Redundancies destabilise your entire workforce. It makes the people left behind nervous and they start jumping ship. What better way of saying we want to keep you and we value you? If more employers did the same thing, as employee's end up picking up more work and pressure, they'd have a more motivated workforce who aren't looking to jump ship. That's why local authorities are now struggling to recruit. Employees have had zero or minimal pay rises for nearly a decade now. They are having their terms cut. Pensions cut. And having more work piled on top of them as the workload increases at the same time that jobs are lost. They are demotivated and many are highly skilled. And voting with their feet. Contrary to some opinions, their skills sets are often in huge demand in the private sector, where they can get much better pay and conditions. Respecting the additional work and pressure in fairer pay rises might have meant that the sector didn't lose so many of its best staff to profit rather than public service.