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Lancashire Times
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11:19 AM 1st April 2020
business

National Minimum And Living Wage Increases Come Into Effect

 
The 2020 National Living Wage comes into effect today (Wednesday 1 April), a 6.2% increase on the previous rate.

National Living Wage (NLW) increases from £8.21 to £8.72
new NLW rate to take effect today and applies to over 25 year olds
other workers’ rights to come into place on 6 April

The new rate results in an increase of £930 over the year for a full-time worker on the National Living Wage. The rise means the government is projected to meet its target for the NLW to reach 60% of median earnings by 2020.

The full set of rates can be seen below:

the National Living Wage for those aged 25 and over will increase by 6.2% to £8.72 an hour
the National Minimum Wage for those aged 21 to 24 is increasing by 6.5% to £8.20 an hour
the National Minimum Wage for those aged 18 to 20 is increasing by 4.9% to £6.45 an hour
the National Minimum Wage for those aged under 18 is increasing by 4.6% to £4.55 an hour
the rate for apprentices is increasing by 6.4% to £4.15 per hour

In light of the pressure on businesses caused by the outbreak of COVID-19, the government has unveiled a comprehensive package of support to protect businesses and individuals, including an initial £330 billion of guarantees for businesses, £20 billion in business rates support and a new Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to help pay people’s wages.

All financial support for businesses and workers from the government during this time can be found here on the Business Support website. https://www.businesssupport.gov.uk/

Alongside the increase in the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage, further labour market reforms are also coming into place on 6 April, enhancing workers’ rights across the board.

These include:

Parental Bereavement Leave and Pay, implementing a statutory right to a minimum of 2 weeks’ leave for all employed parents if they lose a child under the age of 18, or suffer a stillbirth from 24 weeks of pregnancy. Eligible parents will be able to claim statutory pay while absent from work. This is the most generous offer on parental bereavement leave and pay in the world

workers to receive a day-one statement of rights, which will set out leave and pay entitlements to around 1.5 million people for the first time

the scrapping of the Swedish Derogation – an end to the legal loophole which enables some firms to pay agency workers less than permanent staff

new agency workers to benefit from a key facts page before signing up with an agency, which will provide clarity on their rights, particularly around their pay

just 2% of employees need to make a request for the employer to inform and consult them on issues relating to the business before an employer must commence negotiating such an arrangement. This has been reduced from 10%

increasing the reference period for calculating holiday pay for workers with variable hours from 12 to 52 weeks, meaning employers must count back across the last 52 weeks that employee has worked and received pay, to calculate how much holiday pay they should receive. This ensures that workers’ holiday pay is more reflective of the pay they would have received if they’d been at work

Commenting on the new national minimum wage rates, TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said:

“Britain is indebted to its army of minimum wage heroes. Many – including care workers and supermarket staff – are currently on the frontline of the battle against coronavirus. They deserve every penny of this increase, and more.

“The best way to show our respect is to get the minimum wage up to a real living wage as soon as possible.

“Millions of low-paid workers are struggling to make ends meet. That’s not right during a pandemic – or at any time.”