A meeting next week will give business owners the opportunity to have their concerns heard regarding the minimum wage increase.
A newly formed group, Local Economy Forum is a response to Tynwald’s decision to approve a new minimum wage of £13.46 per hour from April next year.
An emergency meeting will be held on Monday, November 10 at 6:30pm at the Palace Hotel in Douglas.
Former minister and MHK Chris Robertshaw will be chairing the meeting.
The forum is open to all businesses that generate the larger part of their income on the island, or who export locally made products.
Be Heard
The groups immediate aim is to highlight the destructive impacts of the government’s current policy and to propose an alternative, more effective way of increasing the income of lower-paid workers.
Speaking to Manx.News, Mr Robertshaw said: “There’s one or two proposals going to come forward at the meeting.
“I think there’s a number of things the meeting wants to achieve. The forum wants to understand in more detail what the impact is going to be on apprenticeships, for example, and young people coming into into work for the very first time, as well as the actual income adults on minimum rates of pay.
“Hopefully we get some feedback as to the ideas that have been proposed. We’ll take them forward as robustly as we can, and hopefully get some change between now and the budget such that everybody gains from it.”
