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Minimum Wage Case Study

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In the UK the private sector gets its largest number of employees from the retail sector with about 3 million workers. One third of employees in the retail sector are below 25 years and mostly part-time workers with a female majority. The retail sector accounts for about 539.000 outlets in total in the UK in 2014. When Retail sector is mentioned it should be noted that there are workers in the retail sector earning below minimum wage and others earning far beyond the floor level wage. The focus in this case is those earning below minimum wage.

This sector includes, customer service merchandising, warehouse and distribution in different areas like music, sport, fashion and online retailing. The retail sector contributes for about 11% of the …show more content…

This can be considered as a strategy used by the employers to reduce labor cost intensity and it seems to spread very fast around Britain and even Europe. This might bring us to the pre-conclusion that employees working in this supermarket see the introduction or increase in minimum wage as a curse for those who will lose their jobs. Most employees at Tesco earn far beyond the minimum wage which makes its increase not very advantageous for …show more content…

He said that the effects might not be seen or felt in the short term but in the long run the result could become a very big problem for the British economy.

On the other hand, it is also argued that the effects of minimum wage could be seen immediately after introduction of minimum wage for example Stigler, (1946). Another researcher said that “the ability to adjust labor demand in the short-run is very limited” and he also added that “it is the reason why in many minimum wage literature there are very few evidence on the effects on employment for example” Sorkin, (2013). This means that he also stand by Meer’s arguments.

Since the introduction of minimum wage especially in the retail sector there has been a fall not only in the number of workers in general but especially in the number of female workers. There have always been a larger percentage of women in the retail sector for example in 2000 they were about 63% of female workers and 47% of men employees and still the majority were non-British women. Below is a table representing the retail sector employment organization in the UK between 2000 and

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