In principle, I am in complete agreement with this.
I do fear that in practice the outcome of this is that it will make it even harder than it is already for younger people to get into work. The outcome being that 16 year olds are worse off (many jobless) than they are today (underpaid).
Socialism butts head against capitalism once again.
It does seem unfair that younger workers get paid less, and I can see why it’s called age discrimination. But why would recruiters hire 16 year old on the same wage as those who are older and presumably with experience? There’s a risk to giving someone their first job, without a work reference and interview experience from the candidate employers have to take a risk when hiring younger candidates.
If this equality is realised then the actual reality will be that those youngsters who are hired will benefit, but for many they will find it even harder to open doors.
I do enjoy how multiplying three numbers together is represented as “research” in this august publication.
SNP demands wage reform to get more tax
So glad to see Mhairi talking about this. She is going to be such a loss. Minimum wage has always annoyed me, it’s completely ageist. Why should two people doing the same job get paid differently?
Wait sorry trying to understand they’re saying the minimum wage going up to 11.44 isn’t high enough? Are they saying they want it to be higher?
When hiring staff, companies don’t just look at the hourly pay rate. They look at the candidate’s skills, experience and overall cost of employment including likely expense for training, colleague support to onboard / upskill the recruit etc.
Narrowing the hourly rate would simply make the younger and less experienced candidates less attractive to companies and recruiters, due to the unknown cost of training and upskilling, in addition to experienced staff time lost to supporting them.
We are not some isolated bubble here. We can look to other countries to how they manage their minimum wages – and how that affects the labour market.
Is the UK out of step in other EU countries for having an age based minimum wage?
This article talks about the Dutch experience who do have an age based wage:
Examples include people not being hired because they are too old.
There are also examples of places paying the same wage because they want to attract young talent and improve the area.
There is also the basic principle of equal pay for equal work.
Balanced against that – are the arguments saying if young people were not cheap – they would not be hired.
I think – that once a person reaches 18 – they could be living independently- so pay should be paid equally. I also lean towards the argument that slightly older people should not be discriminated against because they are more expensive.
8 comments
In principle, I am in complete agreement with this.
I do fear that in practice the outcome of this is that it will make it even harder than it is already for younger people to get into work. The outcome being that 16 year olds are worse off (many jobless) than they are today (underpaid).
Socialism butts head against capitalism once again.
It does seem unfair that younger workers get paid less, and I can see why it’s called age discrimination. But why would recruiters hire 16 year old on the same wage as those who are older and presumably with experience? There’s a risk to giving someone their first job, without a work reference and interview experience from the candidate employers have to take a risk when hiring younger candidates.
If this equality is realised then the actual reality will be that those youngsters who are hired will benefit, but for many they will find it even harder to open doors.
I do enjoy how multiplying three numbers together is represented as “research” in this august publication.
SNP demands wage reform to get more tax
So glad to see Mhairi talking about this. She is going to be such a loss. Minimum wage has always annoyed me, it’s completely ageist. Why should two people doing the same job get paid differently?
Wait sorry trying to understand they’re saying the minimum wage going up to 11.44 isn’t high enough? Are they saying they want it to be higher?
When hiring staff, companies don’t just look at the hourly pay rate. They look at the candidate’s skills, experience and overall cost of employment including likely expense for training, colleague support to onboard / upskill the recruit etc.
Narrowing the hourly rate would simply make the younger and less experienced candidates less attractive to companies and recruiters, due to the unknown cost of training and upskilling, in addition to experienced staff time lost to supporting them.
We are not some isolated bubble here. We can look to other countries to how they manage their minimum wages – and how that affects the labour market.
Is the UK out of step in other EU countries for having an age based minimum wage?
This article talks about the Dutch experience who do have an age based wage:
https://www.equaltimes.org/thanks-to-an-age-dependent-minimum
Examples include people not being hired because they are too old.
There are also examples of places paying the same wage because they want to attract young talent and improve the area.
There is also the basic principle of equal pay for equal work.
Balanced against that – are the arguments saying if young people were not cheap – they would not be hired.
I think – that once a person reaches 18 – they could be living independently- so pay should be paid equally. I also lean towards the argument that slightly older people should not be discriminated against because they are more expensive.