BRC: Wage rise will put pressure on small business

The minimum wage increase, effective from October, will have a "disproportionate" affect on small business owners, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

Richard Dodd, head of media for the BRC, said that small business owners may have difficulty absorbing the costs.

"It's obviously not the only cost pressure that smaller retailers face, they face a whole range of other problems, but minimum wage has a bigger effect on smaller retailers," he commented.

Mr Dodd added that the number of jobs available in smaller retail outlets has been decreasing in recent times.

The BRC's 2007 National Minimum Wage Survey found that the number of workers employed by small and medium sized enterprises had fallen by four per cent over the last year, with wage expenditure for shop floor staff increasing by 12 per cent - three times the rate of inflation.

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