Firms Ask for Cheaper Hiring Days Before the Budget
Some businesses are calling for the costs of employing staff to be brought down in Wednesday's Budget.
At the Devon Business Show, firms said they had spent the past two years absorbing increases in employers' National Insurance contributions introduced in 2024, alongside rises in the National Minimum Wage.
A publisher from Tavistock, in Devon, put a number on the hesitation: he is holding back from filling two new positions at his firm because of the cost of taking on new employees. That is the awkward shape of the argument. The hiring decision gets made on this year's cost, and this year's cost is precisely what a Budget can move.
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A cost you can defer is exactly the kind of cost a small firm defers. Two jobs existing on paper but not on the payroll is about as clear a message as a chancellor is going to get from a budget submission.
It is a clear message from a sympathetic room: the complaint was made at a business show, by firms already struggling with the past two years of employment costs. Two unfilled posts record one owner's decision. They don't measure how many hires the Budget is actually holding back.