JerryChicken wrote:
I'm not particularly involved with the payroll side of the business that I work for but I wonder if there is a scenario where the likes of one of the large supermarket chains would find it beneficial to cut its non-management roles (ie the infantry who stack shelves or drag pallets out of the warehouse) down to, say, 20 hours per week to minimise their exposure to NI and then introduce an agency to the business who will also employ those same staff on a casual basis to fill in as and when required ?
Can anyone answer the question of whether this will result in a saving to both employers in NI contributions, its certainly not illegal to hold down jobs with two employers and the employee will still be taxed at the same rate as if they were working for just the one so no change there, but will it make a difference to the employer(s) ?
I don't doubt for one minute that its being trialled at a supermarket somewhere.
B&M have taken it a stage further and don't even bother with the whole fanciful idea of paying people to do work for them. They just use free labour in conjunction with the local jobcentre.
Over the last 2 years (May/June 2013 - May/June 2015) our local B&M store has utilised the Work Trial, Mandatory Work Placement and the Work Programme schemes to the extent that they've had a total (so far) of 73 people do 2 weeks full time work for free under the various schemes.
Of the 73 people who did this work -
54 are still unemployed and receiving JSA
9 are currently sanctioned
5 left JSA to go into work
3 were moved from JSA on to "other benefits" ie disability etc
2 ended their JSA claims
None of the 5 who went into work are working at B&M.
That's 5,548 hours of work that at NMW of £6.50 would have cost them just over £36k.
A person doing those 2 weeks should have received just under £500. Instead they simply received their JSA of £142. Effectively they worked for 2 weeks for a wage of £1.89 per hour.
Rant over.
