Minimum wage increases
Link: Minimum wage increases
The minimum wage will increase on 1 October, benefiting over one million workers. The new minimum rate for adults will be £5.05 an hour, up from £4.85. The minimum rate for 18 to 21 year olds will increase by 15p to £4.25.
The increase follows a report from the Low Pay Commission, which said the number of jobs had grown since the minimum wage was introduced in 1999.
Trade unions welcomed the increase. Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary said: “The increase will see well over a million low-paid workers with more cash in their pockets, many of them women working part-time.”
Further increases to the minimum wage are planned. In February, the government provisionally accepted the Low Pay Commission’s recommendations that the rates should be further increased, to £5.35 and £4.45 in October 2006. This increase depends on a further report by the commission in early 2006, on whether a further rise is sustainable in the prevailing economic climate.
Business leaders are asking for an urgent reappraisal of planned future increases to the minimum wage.
Lewis Sidnick, employment policy adviser at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said: “When the wage was introduced it was set at a reasonable level but since we have seen large increases.” He continued: “The government needs to recognise that the economy is worsening, while business costs are rising”.
