Hiring Slumps To 'Pandemic-Era Level' In Wake Of Budget

[webbo3]

https://news.sky.com/story/budget-fallout-hiring-slumps-to-pandemic-era-level-13270231

Reeves budget taking effect.

[Old_Geezer]

That's the trouble with these employers, never wanting to fall in with government strategy to make the economy boom.

[youngmafbog]

Inevitable and its only the start as it doesnt come in until April.  These are just the companies preparing.

Absolutley no surprise to anyone with a modicom od financial knowledge.

Still, Rach from Complaints should be good at handling the compaints when they come in.

[naomi24]

Inevitable.  Common sense says it had to happen.

[ladybirder]

It's damned depressing.

[ToraToraTora]

Of course hiring is down, a 9 year old junior tuck shop manager could forsee that. Labour are completely clueless. They make decisions based on envy, emotion and illogic. Rachel from accounts thinks that they'll all just pay her new jobs tax and wear it! oh dear!

[Deskdiary]

A big part of the problem is when you look at Labour's front bench there's very few that have any actual business experience, so they are making decisions way beyond their abilities, with the decisions mainly being driving for idealogical reasons.

 

Take Jonathan Reynolds, Secretary of State for Business and Trade. You'd like to think it would be important to have an in-depth knowldge of business and trade to be in this position but straight from University in 2002 he worked for a Labour MP, he served on Labour's NEC, he became a Labour councillor and then in 2010 a Labour MP.

[Ellipsis]

If you think that hiring would have not slumped if the Tories have remained in power, then I have a bridge to sell you ...

[Canary42]

Truss would have handled it so much better of course 🤣

[ToraToraTora]

well the tories  didn't introduce the job killer tax in 14 years ellipsis. This is primarily down to that.

[naomi24]

The rise in employers' NI contributions together with the forthcoming rise in the minimum wage dictates that costs to employers will increase substantially.  The only way to minimise that is to raise prices or lose staff - or both.  We will see a combination of the two.  It's not rocket science.  This foolish government doesn't understand how business works. 

[Ellipsis]

Yes, it was all going so well before. Here's an analogy ...

A company buys a new piece of machinery in 2010 and runs it at full capacity, not even stopping for rest or maintenance. The production creates lots of profit but, after some time, starts to wear out and break down. Now it's 2024 and the company has to invest in fixing the machine, adding up to even more lost time and money than if they had kept up on incremental maintenance; buying a new machine to replace it may save some time, but is an expensive option. Costs rise and profits fall. 

[ToraToraTora]

20:48 what has that got to do with the job killer tax? It wont raise any money net. If they ned to raise money there are many better ways.

[New Judge]

"Here's an analogy ..."

Not a very good one. 

Your company needs the whole machine whether it produces one widget or a million widgets.

Most companies can and do vary their workforce. Their pay being current account, the variation has an immediate influence on their bottom line. It's the first thing bosses reach for when they need to cut costs. 

Anyone with just a modicum of business sense knows this. But such people are a bit thin on the ground in government circles at present.

[Ellipsis]

When New Labour was in power in the 2000s, a criticism was that they didn't fix the roof while sun was shining (before the 2008 crash). And the Tories continued that thrashing for their 14 years. If it continued like that, the whole machine will break - in fact, in many ways, it has broken. High immigration - why? - straining to breaking point housing, potholes, the NHS ... is there anything not broken? The machine needs mending, that needs money, and that money has to come from somewhere. The tragedy is not that Labour is trying to fix the machine, the tragedy is that they're not capable of doing it (they are lightweights) and they should not have been lumbered in that position in the first place (but the previous lot were lightweights and worse).

[ToraToraTora]

ellipsis: "The machine needs mending, that needs money, and that money has to come from somewhere" - yes but ENI hike will not raise any, in fact it may well reduce it. Employers will not hire, layoff, reduce wages etc etc. The big ones will just move staff out of UK. That means fewer paying tax and NI as it is now, let alone the new hike.

[ToraToraTora]

...oh and of course all those new ones on the dole will be scrounging benefits. I doubt the ENI hike will add anything and will probably take away.

[New Judge]

"...they should not have been lumbered in that position in the first place"

Nobody forced them to stand though, did they? When in opposition they gave the gullible the impression they had all the answers. What went wrong?

[Ellipsis]

"What went wrong" is that none of the UK political parties are competent enough, individually or as a government of national unity, to do an effective job of governing the country given the state that it's in. 

[New Judge]

I quite agree (though probably not quite with the same reasoning).

But the Labour Party campaigned in e GE on the basis tthat they had the answers to all the country's problems. So far they've shown that they have none.