Yesterday saw Chancellor Rishi Sunak announce this year’s budget. We take a brief look at this year’s budget announcements and how it will impact your business and your employees.
Sunak outlined that inflation is set to rise to 4% over the next year, but unemployment is expected to peak at 5.2% in 2022. The UK economy is forecast to return to pre-Covid levels by 2022.
Pay
- National Living Wage – will increase to £9.50 an hour from 1 April 2022 (a 6.6% increase)
- National Minimum Wage – rates will increase to:
- Apprentices – £4.30 to £4.81
- Under 18’s – increase from £4.62 to £4.81
- Age 18 to 20 – increase from £6.56 to £6.83 per hour
- Age 21 to 22 – increase from £8.36 an hour to £9.18 an hour
- Public sector pay freezes – come to an end and an increase in wages for 2.6 million workers including police officers and teachers
- Universal credit – taper rate is being lowered (to 55% from 65%) to allow workers to keep more of the money they earn.
Business rates / discounts
- Business rates
- 50% business rate discount for retail, hospitality and leisure sectors in 2022-23 up to a maximum of £110,000
- Business rate revaluations will be every 3 years from 2023
- Fuel duty – planned rise in fuel duty to be cancelled
- National Insurance Contributions – on pay over £9,569 rise from 12% to 13.5%.
Skills development
- The new UK-wide numeracy programme ‘Multiply’ – which will receive £560m to help improve basic mathematics skills among adults.
Immigration
- Confirmation of a new ‘Scale up visa’ – making it easier and quicker for rapidly development businesses to scale up their operations by recruiting workers from overseas
- Also announced were High Potential Individual and Global Business Mobility visas.
For on demand HR advice or monthly low cost retainers, please contact our Nockolds HR team on 0345 646 0406 or email at enquiries@nockoldshr.co.uk.