The jobs bloodbath continues as Currys is forced to outsource more British staff to India as a result of Rachel Reeves’s “tax on jobs”, the Chief Executive of the electricals retailer has said. The Telegraph has more.
Alex Baldock said the rising cost of employing people in the U.K. meant Currys would rely more on “offshoring” in the near future.
He said: “We’ve already got the best part of 1,000 colleagues in India – all the usual central and IT functions that you would expect – and they do a cracking job for us, and we’re delighted to have them. You can expect, as U.K. people costs inflate, to see more of that, that’s just inevitable.”
The retailer has previously warned that it faces £30 million in extra costs as a result of the Chancellor’s October Budget, at which she announced a £25 billion National Insurance (NI) raid on employers, as well as a 6.7% increase in the minimum wage.
Mr. Baldock said that while it was important to invest in staff pay, he warned that some of the new costs announced by Ms. Reeves would be harmful to jobs.
“The National Insurance tax is a tax on jobs that doesn’t benefit colleagues at all and actually depresses hiring and boosts offshoring and automation.
“We don’t want to employ fewer people in the U.K. We don’t want to depress hiring in the U.K. We want to employ more people. We want to be in the box seat for powering growth in this country. We want to invest more, hire more, and help the economy grow faster. What we’re asking for is the environment to allow us to do that.”
Mr. Baldock also warned of potential “unintended consequences” of policies being brought in as part of Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill, which will strengthen workers’ rights from day one in a job and includes new powers for unions.
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