Again: the 2007 credit crunch and various recessions, depressions and other such radical market adjustments would argue against that. That assumes that a store is aiming for a fixed level of productivity. Whereas in reality any store seeks to maximise productivity: it means an increase in profit (and hence economic growth, hence increase in employment). The linked article appears to suggest that many experts do not think that raising minimum wage will have a negative effect on employment (and if you think about it, it wouldn't. Better pay = increased purchasing power = higher economic turnover = more employment). Yes he is, because in the end it's the salary that expresses the value, not who decided to pay it.
Irrevocable disagreement on that point. Retail stores need the a certain level of manhours (times some productivity multiplier) required to keep shelves stocked and till lines reasonable. Beyond that there's strong diminishing returns in labour productivity as there nothing which needs doing. If you "overproduced" the service of checkouting it would just lead to those checkout workers sitting idle. Definitely not productive. It looks to me as no consensus on whether it will have a "considerable" impact following a fairly small rise. As I said. Its a contentious issue. Reasons behind actions matter.
Never mind the implications for productivity or shareholder return; I think the the fact that many working people in this country are unable to feed themselves with the money they earn and are reliant on food banks is a pretty damn convincing argument for raising the minimum wage. Broadly, wages have not risen in line with inflation; thus, things cost more than they did before and people are increasingly unable to afford stuff. For the poorest in society that "stuff" is food. Although me and my partner don't earn megabucks we're nowhere near the poverty line, yet we've struggled with food bills in the last year or two. We're better off now than we were a year ago, but that's largely thanks to a couple of promotions landing me some significant pay rises.
Strictly speaking people working in your local retail store don't produce anything, they are there to service your customers, so the question is would you get better customer service from someone being paid more versus their lesser paid counterpart ? Tell that to the person who has just been laid off, the person who just received awful customer service, or is returning shoddily made goods.
As Corky42 aptly points out, increased productivity is not just about doing more, but doing better, whether that is smaller queues at the tills or more helpful and friendly service --which may attract return custom and increase turnover. There is no rational argument for paying your staff to be just not-miserable/unmotivated/dishonest-enough to make do. The consequences of those actions matter more.
@BLC, government intervention on rent, cost of commuting and utility bills could fix that without needing to raise wages.
Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others. This kind of socialistic utopia doesn't work unless we will be living in a Star Trek-like post-economic world.
Take public transport for example, no way it could get worse if the government intervened to make it affordable again. Of coyrse that doesn't say much about the government as even a rotting mouse carcass would do a better job than the companies privatization of public transport in the UK produced.
You can go to Waitrose and get better service. Most of the population find it not worth the extra cost or just can't afford it. If marginal productivity doesn't exceed the marginal wage increase, you don't pay more. I could live happily on £15,000. There's no good reason for me not to give money beyond that point to the far more needy in the world. But I don't. Neither do most people. Why should businesses follow a higher standard?
And yet, Waitrose and its associated John Lewis is currently one of the most successful retail companies in the UK. Yet it is a company that charges higher prices than most. Tells you something about the benefits of paying staff a better wage. My point is that it does. This is not a matter of charity, but of good business sense. Paying staff a better wage comes back to benefit a company in all sorts of positive ways. Paying them less backfires in all sorts of ways.
Case in point, the reason most of the population find it not worth the extra cost or just can't afford it is because most of the populations wages barely cover the cost of living, the utility bills, rent/mortgage, etc, etc. Or do you think people choose to go to the food bank, or buy the cheapest food available to them ?
I plugged current minimum wage of £6.50 into my salary calculator app and got monthly take-home money of £921, that's with 37 hours per week. About 2 years ago when I was still living by myself, monthly spend of around £1000 bought me a comfortable lifestyle, allowing me to save up rest of my salary (or spend it on computers and cameras). £900 per month is more than enough to live close to London (Luton), own a car and eat £5 at lunch every weekday. For a young couple like myself now: living with my wife who is currently out of work. We only spend £1700 per month, living inside M25 and my car commute cost of £200 pm. We still manage a nice restaurant meal every month and buying nice food. Only thing I had to cut back on is from buying a nvidia 980 to 970. So I think those people complaining minimum wage isn't enough really need to look at their lifestyle and budget accordingly. 2 people on minimum wages is more than enough to make a good living. On immigration and diversity: I feel those pockets of foreign communities are solely to blame on the current state of British voters. It's shocking to read parts of Britain that's occupied by immigrates actually makes an Englishman feel unwelcome. As an immigrate myself (Chinese, here 14 years), I don't feel threatened living and working among the English community. I never felt the need to actively seek out other people of similar race or belief. Diversity is one of the best British values, for example you can find every cuisine in the world just in London.
Again: works both ways. There have been, and still are parts of Britain where immigrants were/are made to feel decidedly unwelcome. The first generations wanted nothing more than to integrate in the UK. Got to ask yourself where it went wrong.
That's true, I almost never ventured into those parts I've forgotten. As a rule I avoid council estates and anywhere with groups of teenagers lingering. I've found perfectly nice individual can turn nasty when the group mentality kicks in. It must be the biggest human instinct "us against them", the one stopping utopia earth. "They are different and therefore we are getter." "You look similar to me therefore we should stick together." Where it went wrong? The knee-jerk response would be too many foreign people, and it's probably right. But deep down, we all know it's human's inherent tribal instinct. *sigh* Can't we all just get along?
I maintain that it doesn't. Or if it does then Waitrose will continue growing rapidly. The other supermarket will (rationally) copy its business practice. I'll be proved wrong. Edit. They don't actually pay that fantastically although no doubt waitrose offer better non monetary benefits. search seeling non management The wonderful logic of pay more=more business revenue=more pay virtuous cycle unfortunately doesn't work.
Who exactly isn't contributing? In that last sentence are you referring to anyone that is not highly skilled or is it specifically the scrap vans, hand car washes and generally types of self-employment that are accessible to poor people?
