Business groups told Alison McGovern during a non-public meeting that the governments new tax rules dont match its job-growth plans (a meeting that took place on nov 21st)
The employment-related discussion showed how the planned National Insurance changes create problems: “The extra National Insurance means I cant employ two part-time apprentices next year‚“ one business-owner explained
Major store chains including Tesco‚ M&S and Boots pushed back against Rachel Reevesʼs £25bn National Insurance increase that starts next spring; they say job-cuts are going to happen because of these new costs
The governments white-paper (coming out in a weeks time) wants to reach these main goals:
- Push employment rate from 74.8% to 80%
- Get more young-people into jobs
- Change how benefits work for non-working youth
- Make job-centers focus on long-term careers
Recent numbers show about 946k young people arent working or studying as of last september; this matches a bigger issue where 900k more people stopped working since four years ago
Health problems are a big part of why people dont work — both physical issues for older workers and mental-health problems for younger ones: over 30% of non-working people have long-term health issues