ACS

ACS has called on the Low Pay Commission not to increase the National Minimum Wage in its next recommendations due in Spring 2010.

In its submission which brings together a survey of the impacts of the wage on over 500 local shop retailers, ACS sets out the pressures that the minimum wage increases over a series of years have placed on the sector and explains the risks presented by minimum wage increases in the current precarious economic climate.

ACS Chief Executive James Lowman said: “Local shops provide flexible local employment for hundreds of thousands of people. Retailers in our sector support the need for a minimum wage but have found the increases of recent years hard to afford. The impact has been reduced hours, fewer jobs and reduced investment in important community businesses.

“In this precarious economic period any cost increases pose an even greater risk to businesses and jobs and therefore restraint is necessary.”

ACS makes this formal submission following meetings with the Commission Secretariat. ACS also expects to be invited to give oral evidence to the Commission panel and is facilitating visits by the Commissioners to members’ stores in different parts of the UK.