Working Tax Credits (Removed from Chadwick Street)

[Dave]

According the press reports this sandwich company pays at least the minimum wage.   And as it's such a big company, I think that's probably true - it would be hard for them to get away with paying less.

The point about in-work benefits such as Working Tax Credit is (as I have mentioned before) that it means that no-one should even find themselves better off on benefits than they would be in work.  Of course, human nature being what it is, that still doesn't guarantee that there won't be some lazy people who would rather stay on benefits and have less money! 

But on the whole, in-work benefits have been effective, and both Tory and Labour governments have recognised that over the past 30 years.  And as a result the UK unemployment rate has fallen from a peak of 12% 30 years ago, just before Family Credit was introduced, to c.6% today. 

[corium]

But does the company have to recruit its workforce from Hungary because it can't get British workers or does it choose to do so because it can get away with paying them less than the legal minimum wage?

There a re number of employers who try to get away with this (generally small ones of the last set of prosecutions I saw was typical) but I suspect this won't happen here given the publicity as the local press won't be doing their job if there is a hint of the merest irregularity. Although I don't know the full details my impression was they had tried to recruit locally...again is anything under the minimum wage likely to have gone uncommented on?

[Rudolph Hucker]

But does the company have to recruit its workforce from Hungary because it can't get British workers or does it choose to do so because it can get away with paying them less than the legal minimum wage?

I'm sure there's more to it but on the news they said British workers weren't prepared to stand for 12 hours on shift. One of these days someone will invent a device to sit on. Oh yes, that'll be a chair then. Wasn't sure why you had to stand to make sandwiches?

RH

[My login is Henrietta]

Most will be part time .i think .

Whether they are or not is irrelevant to the context of my reply to Dave's comment about this being a bad time for supermarket expansion.

[My login is Henrietta]

"why.......is a sandwich maker from Northampton having to recruit its new workforce from Hungary?"

But does the company have to recruit its workforce from Hungary because it can't get British workers or does it choose to do so because it can get away with paying them less than the legal minimum wage?

[Bowden Guy]

We don't need to "return" to that situation, Dave, otherwise why (with unemployment still standing at 6%) is a sandwich maker from Northampton having to recruit its new workforce from Hungary? Repeated, of course, all over the country. A few years ago we were told that there were 100,000 "problem families" who suffered from "worklessness"' often over multiple generations. The figure was recently "revised" to 500,000.

Over the past 20 years a huge number of (mostly) energetic and hardworking people have migrated to the UK to do the jobs that my parents used to do for all of their working lives(including seasonal fruit picking).

[Dave]

Whilst there used to be some truth in what BG writes, this: 

Tax credits are a way of artificially keeping down wage rates. 

... is no longer the case.

It was true at first, after the Tory government introduced Family Credit in the 1980s, but the introduction of the National Minimum Wage in 1998 put a stop to that little scam.  And now more companies are choosing to pay the Living Wage, that will help reduce the costs to taxpayers, as will the present government's proposal to increase the National Minimum Wage. 

It's important that we don't return to a situation whereby people find themselves better off on benefits than they would be in employment. 

[Bowden Guy]

Tax credits are a way of artificially keeping down wage rates. Employers know that that they can offer low wages because everyone knows that the taxpayer is making up the difference. Beveridge must be turning in his grave. The welfare state we have in this country is not sustainable, especially for those benefits introduced by the last Government to bribe the over 60s.

[Dave]

Gordon Brown?  What's he got to do with it! 

Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits are sensible measures based on the Family Credits introduced by A certain Margaret Thatcher nearly 30 years ago.  The objective was very simple: to provide unemployed people with an incentive to accept part-time or low paid work rather than relying entirely on benefits. It therefore saves taxpayers' money.  There have been technical problems with the system over the years, and some of those led to overpayments. But the principle is a sensible one, which is why the present government have retained it, and will be integrating it into Duncan Smith's single credit system if and when that is finally introduced.

[Bowden Guy]

Yes, and those wages will then be "topped up" by the taxpayer with working tax credits and other benefits. Thank you, Gordon Brown.

[amazon]

There was a snippet on the news yesterday about Aldi announcing plans to spend £600m on more stores and to employ 35,000 more staff.

Obviously not in the next few weeks and the number of employment places have been questioned by "a retail analyst", what ever one of those is.

Most will be part time .i think .