How bad will the Budget be?

There is an old saying what the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve over, it is a constant cloak.

BOLLOCKS...

Sorry you ran out of argument. never mind. 

In the event of increased costs, businesses have limited options. Unless margins are large enough or waste great enough for these costs to be absorbed, they have to be passed on somehow for the business to remain viable. This can mean higher prices where customers are willing and able to pay them. They can be met by lower staff  pay rises where pay is not already at a legal minimum. They can be met by overtime cuts or staff cuts, attempting to make existing staff do more. They may be met by attempting to streamline the business so that it needs fewer managers. Or they might be met by actually selling off less profitable parts of the business. 

Either way, if the business cannot afford to simply absorb the increased costs as most probably couldnt, they will have to be passed on somehow, in one or more of the above ways, depending upon which options are most viable for the business concerned.

Even in the same sector - eg retail in my case - different options might be open to different businesses. Waitrose for example broadly targets wealthier customers who are far more interested in quality and far less concerned about price. Waitrose might well be better able to pass on costs to customers in the form of higher prices than Tesco ever could for example, particularly on it's quality ranges. Tesco would probably have to do what it has already been doing - streamlining it's operation to need fewer managers and making the remaining ones do more, try to limit wage costs by less overtime and lower staffing levels, making existing staff far more multi-skilled for greater efficiency, and if necessary lower pay rises than would be liked. But Tesco is suffering chronically high staff turnover already as people keep leaving for better jobs, which is itself providing market pressure to keep pay as competitively high as they can reasonable sustain whilst remaining competitive. If pay ever fell to any legal minimum, Tesco would seriously struggle to recruit and retain enough staff to remain viable in some areas. Already it relies very heavily on younger workers. And this is because it pays the going rate for the job regardless of age. This means that even a 16 year old doing the same job as me gets the same £12.02 per hour as me. Which is I think as it should be. But this is so far above the minimum wage for this age group that Tesco is a very attractive employer for such young people. It also has so many stores in so many towns that it appeals very much to university students because it allows them to work at a store in their home towns when not at uni and in their uni towns when they are.

For these reasons Tesco remains an attractive employer for young people, but staff turnover remains just as high amongst these people simply because after graduating most of them have hopes and plans to go on to bigger and better things. None of them plan to work in retail for the rest of their lives.

He is on my ignore list because it is very rare he ever has an intelligent argument.

It was predictable from that which is so stupid.  The rest of us were twiddling our thumbs observing the fact that the Tories didn't even bother to campaign, because they knew even the British people aren't dumb enough to keep voting for a pack of lying New Labourites pretending to be something else.  Now that Labour are fking everything up and gaining a lot of resentment from the 20% of the populatation stupid enough to vote for them, I can see things shaking up.  If not then the country flatlines.