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Minimum Wage Increase 2024

Quitelife

The minimum wage is going from 11.30 Euro to 12.70 Euro from next Monday . Not sure how people can live on minimum wage these days with rent etc .

for a single person it’s still a good bit more than dole 469 Euro for 37 hour week but if your a couple and only one of you works it’s not worth it. Pat Mcdonagh of Supermacs seems to be very animated about the rise saying he’ll have to increase food prices by 10% to maintain last years 27 million profits , Larry Goodman must be vicious at the thoughts of paying his workers from Brazil and Lithuania the increased minimum wage for back breaking work in the meat factories , Keelings Fruits are another outfit paying minimum wage to misfortunes from Bulgaria living in caravans .

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fatherted1969

Started out in the early 90s as a boner in meat factories, at one time I'd struggle to find a better paying job in the country albeit the work is very hard. Done it for 20 years and it's now pretty much a minimum paying job outside the red circled lads still at it. Worst employers of all time must be meat factories

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058328776/minimum-wage-increase-2024

I don't have much sympathy for Larry, Pat or Keeling's - they can afford to pay alot higher than minimum wage. This rise though will have a bad affect on small shops, coffee shops and small restaurants. It's another increase on top of all the other increases and if they put up prices they lose customers. Alot will have to close up in 2024 resulting in job losses.

callaway92

Pat McDonagh is gas

His staff immediately have €0.50c per hour deducted from their wages for uniform and lunches in Supermacs (even if you don't eat their food). Not sure if same for hotels (probably is). He'll end up probably bumping that up slightly now again with this increase.

He's a piece of shít employer.

rolling boh

It's gets me that that the bold Pat is mentioned regularly on business shows in particular about all the jobs he gives .The conditions are rubbish and is just hiring young people on minimum wages ,he is no hero .

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547968#Comment_121547968

You could argue the increase for a small shop or business with say 5 employees would only add about €350 to their weekly costs, whereas the likes of a meat plant with 200 workers would have to find an extra €13,500.

Both businesses are probably working off the same margins, so both will suffer the same pain.

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548038#Comment_121548038

A small coffee shop or newsagents etc cannot be compared to a meat factory. Margins would be very different. The volume of product being turned over per hour is very different. A shop may have no customers in a certain time ( but still has to pay staff) where as a meat factory is continually producing product that will be sold.

elperello

I don't mind paying a few cents extra so the person serving me can get a bit extra.

I avoid Supermacs and would advise those seeking work to do likewise.

Get Real

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547968#Comment_121547968

With small shops, coffee shops and small restaurants I'd seriously question the viability in the first place if their business if they closed up over a 1.40 per hour per staff member increase.

More often than not, it's a classic poor mouth headline put out by business owners who want to protect their own bank balances imo. And it wouldn't even impact them

For example, if a terribly small coffee shop sold a mere 6 coffees an hour (business viability seriously in question already here) it's an extra 25c a coffee. If a coffee was 4quid, it's now 4.25.

A 6% price increase for an 11% wage increase. Trickle up economics it should be called. Not the Reagan theory of trickle down.

If the coffee shop sells a more reasonable 12 coffees an hour an average, it's a 3% price increase for an 11% wage increase. And doesn't affect the owners bottom line.

The lower paid gain more % wise than they themselves will have to pay on goods and services as a result of wage increases if the cost was applied fairly.

Some owners will have the headline out and use it as an excuse to throw 50c on instead of the 25c

BrianD3

I generally avoid Supermacs but recently stopped at one for a Mighty Mac meal, 10.50 for utter slop and extremely scabby with the chips. For comparison, a quarter pounder meal from my local Italian chipper is about the same price, far tastier and I'm stuffed before finishing the chips. McDonalds is also better and cheaper - in locations which have both, I don't know how McDonagh manages to sell his slop.

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548154#Comment_121548154

It should be as simple as that but customer behaviour is not simple - if a customer pays 4euro for their coffee every day and it now costs 4.25 every day - that may be the tipping point that stops that customer having that coffee every day. They now go sod it - it's too expensive I'm stopping that habit. The coffee shop loses that customer and possibly many others by putting the price up.

It may be fine for the likes of Costa to put up their prices but may be not viable for a small coffee shop. People don't argue price increases with chain stores but argue over every cent in a small business!!

Padre_Pio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548154#Comment_121548154

Where are you buying coffee for 4euro a cup?

Minimum wage is just that, the bare minimum, a wage for students and people with little to no skills.

No one should be living on it long term.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548345#Comment_121548345

Indeed. And if someone has a disability which means they cannot get a better job then there is substantial state support in terms of HAP/ social housing and medical card.

It's important that there are starter-jobs available in the economy for people to learn in and get experience for better paid jobs.

chrisd2019

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548189#Comment_121548189

I have to agree, recently stopped in Port Laoise spend close to 20E in Supermacs on a meal for one, was hungry again an hour later. Portions for sure are shrinking. Larger seems to have shrunk!

Geuze

Small shop in central Galway.

Direct costs of selling a cup of tea = 26 cent, as stated by the owner.

Tea bag, sugar, wooden stirrer, cup, lid, an allowance for heating the hot water = 26 cent.

Sell that tea for 2.00 euro, which is below average.

1.76 ex VAT, so 1.50 gross margin, or a 75% gross profit margin.

Many firms in Ireland enjoy large profit margins, so there is loads of scope to absorb higher wages.

The costs above exclude indirect costs, like insurance, rent, etc.

Geuze

Headfort hotel, Kells, Co. Meath, cappuccino = 4.20, so massive profits being earned already, so plenty of scope to pay a higher wage without putting up prices.

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548946#Comment_121548946

Irrelevant because its excluding labour and rent, which are the biggest costs in a food business. Direct costs are usually trivial.

Ginger83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548952#Comment_121548952

Tell that to Vinny 🙂

kowloon

If a business can't pay their staff a living wage then the businesses aren't viable. You can't have your capitalism and eat it.

Ginger83

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121549044#Comment_121549044

Many companies don't pay a living wage. That's why there are supports like hap fis swa etc.

kowloon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121549063#Comment_121549063

And those companies are effectively being subsidised by the state when they allow it to cover what employees need for a basic living.

Mr. teddywinkles

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121549092#Comment_121549092

Convinced what coming in here now is subsidized labour by government for their pals in a few years if that. Which is really worrying. Slippery slope from there on in.

gary550

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121549044#Comment_121549044

Or maybe there are roles that slot between being making sense to pay an unskilled rate for yet border being unviable if that rate needs to be higher.

The higher the minimum wage goes the more it pushes businesses to weed out these jobs.

Quite honestly I'd sooner automate a task where possible for low level roles than hire more staff, they're the greatest pain in the hole you'll ever have to deal with. It leaves more money to pay for experience which is universally valued by every business owner in the country. Very few experienced staff in a skilled or even partially skilled roles certainly are not worried about their minimum wage going up!!

Some businesses, particularly in the services & hospitality industry struggle big time here which is why you see more closures there than implemented efficiencies. I'd feel for anyone trying to run a high staff business in hospitality!

Politicians in New York had the brainwave of pushing the minimum wage to $15 for car washers, all it resulted in was closures and automation. https://fee.org/articles/how-the-15-minimum-wage-upended-nycs-car-wash-industry/.

GSBellew

A local petrol station to me did away with its shop and went 24 hour unmanned pumps, pay by card, self service, fuel up and go, that's a few jobs gone.

This is what the future holds for low skilled roles, they will be automated and the higher the entry wage point is the quicker it will happen to more roles.

Minimum wage roles should be considered to be the entry level roles, people should not be pegging these against the cost of paying rent or a mortgage, you need to be elevating yourself well above this level to raise a family, pay for a home never mind anything else.

Basically if we are talking about €500 per week for 38 hours collecting glasses in a pub, great entry level job that, what are we talking about for something a bit up the chain, lets say a receptionist in a Doctors, are we at €1,000 for the same week?

Keep on trying to move the bottom rung up, but the upper rungs are just going to keep getting higher, the lower rungs then get cut off and we end up with more unemployed because they are just not able to earn the wage demanded, it is easier to automate the role and oh look, a lost generation that can't get into housing, familiar that isn't it.

We will have less jobs for more people, how is this being ignored?

The DayDream

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121548345#Comment_121548345

Small towns like the one I live in, you'd be hard pressed to find employers paying much over the minimum. When options for jobs are so limited (pubs, supermarkets, hotels, shops, that's about it) i guess they don't have to.

There are many, many people around here that are nowhere near their teens or being in their first job and having to try and survive on the minimum. I hate hearing people say, 'It's only teenagers in their first job be on minimum wage.' It's absolutely not true. And I only hear those who are comfortable, middle class people who say that type of thing. They're convinced these other people just didn't want to work as hard as them or something to achieve the wage they have.

It's a pretty shite state of affairs when your best chance at a wage that isn't minimum is to work in a German discount supermarket having every task timed to the second and 1000 items per hour scanning target and the hours they expect are nuts too. And it's only a couple euro above min. But that's the reality in many small towns.

And now if you want to move somewhere else to find more opportunities, well, good luck finding accommodation. And you'll have to figure out some way of squirreling away a significant sum - a difficult thing to do when you're not on a living wage.

The worst thing is all the minimum wage jobs also have the worst management who treat you like dirt. I worked in Supermac's once for a few months they treated everyone like crap, like bold teenagers even tho many of us were in our 20s or 30s. Most of the managers were non Irish and have preferential treatment to those who were also from there. The one Irish manager I knew, I met her after we both had left and she told me she used to cry every day before she had to go in because she hated it so much. I also remember working like a dog on Christmas Eve, for some reason they put on less staff than normal but it ended up being the busiest night ever, queue out the door.

Our wages were supposed to come in a few days later, two days after Christmas. And it wasn't paid. Tried to say it was a bank error. People complained and were told we should have money saved to not be living paycheck to paycheck.

And that's what you sound like when you say stuff like that, totally out of touch.

GSBellew

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121549160#Comment_121549160

Ah here, you want sympathy because Aldi & Lidl expect people to work to targets to earn money?

Quitelife

There’s no doubt there are plenty businesses that are very profitable but still pay minimum wage out of pure greed

Cheddar Bob

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121547999#Comment_121547999

He's one truly miserable bastard.

Supermacs charge extra for syrup on their whipped ice creams FFS. 30 or 50c I think it is.

I'm surprised he doesn't have a charge for eating on- site. Youre using his precious central heating and electricity for a good 15, 20 minutes doing that.

And his hot water if you need the jacks.

rolling boh

There are enough people working off the books as it is at least make the minimum wage worthwhile to work we need the lower end jobs filled .No matter how low the minimum wage is you will have buiness owners complaining that they can't afford to pay any more .

Cheddar Bob

Not a popular opinion, but nah.

The service in minimum wage jobs is terrible today but the money only goes higher. You see stuff (speed, attention etc) these days that until 15 years ago would get you near on sacked on the spot in any fast food or other min wage job.

Bar service today compared to pre 2010 is like another world. Back then a barman was required to pour one man's drink while taking an order off a second and handing back change to a third. And all that in a crowded dark noisy nightclub.

That would be unheard of these days.

Potential-Monke

I HATE Pat McDonagh. I hate everything about him, and when he started doing his family holiday videos during Covid, oh I wished some mighty nasty things on him. He's a pure scum employer, and I avoid Supermacs completely now (considering it's going downhill anyway). Just for others, if there's a Supermacs attached to a Circle K, McDonagh has stakes in that Circle K so don't use those ones either.