""Most businesses are making decisions to cut hours as they try to stay viable. We all want our staff to have a good standard of living but they have issues with housing, healthcare, childcare and energy costs, and we can't keep forcing those costs back on businesses. "We are now going from the best little country in the world to do business to the most expensive country in the world to do business... People have to start reading the tea leaves.""
""The minimum wage has become the floor from which businesses can employ people," he said, adding it has a "step effect" that pushes up pay for workers across the country."
Government is considering a 55c increase to the €13.50-an-hour minimum wage, below the Low Pay Commission's 65c (5%) recommendation. Finbarr Filan of ISME said the minimum wage should be linked to inflation and warned that a 5% rise would place undue pressure on businesses after substantial recent cost increases. He said some businesses are cutting hours to stay viable and that rising costs for housing, healthcare, childcare and energy cannot keep being passed to firms. David Broderick of the Small Firms Association said the proposed rise would "suffocate" small businesses and that spiralling costs hinder hiring.
Read at Irish Independent
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]