Hi, welcome to the first of many ‘North East Business Insights’ blogs with me Alan Metcalfe. As we are still in lockdown, I thought I would start to share insights and information from sources available to me through reports and my network in the hope that this may help or educate employers on trends about the jobs market in the North East and inform employers on any relevant information which may affect businesses in general or make our lives easier.
Today I wanted to talk about the new living and minimum wages and this year there is a bit of a revolution afoot. As many of you are aware in previous years, legally those aged 25+ received the living wage and those 24 and under, the minimum wage.
This year as from the 1st April 2021 the living wage applies to those 23+ with the minimum wage for those below that age group. The living wage will then be £8.91 from £8.72 and the minimum wage £8.36 from £8.20 respectively. For 23 and 24-year-olds this means an 8.7% increase, jumping from the £8.20 minimum wage to the new living wage of £8.91.
This is a big change within the marketplace, particularly for those young workers in the jobs market, it represents changes across many industries where entry-level roles are amongst the lowest paid.
If you are an employer you need to start thinking about these changes now, and for employees, an increase in salary is always a welcome benefit and with the personal allowance for income tax increasing on the 6th April, a welcome change for what has been a challenging year for us all.
Should you need more information on this or any other topics around salaries and remuneration packages, please contact me on alanmetcalfe@zenithpeople.com or 07971078177
