More robot jobs under Labour’s £10 wage plans
LABOUR’S plan to increase the minimum wage to £10 per hour could put workers at risk of losing their jobs to robots, an economic think tank has suggested.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the minimum wage was rising rapidly and as a result a growing proportion of the workforce was at that level of pay.
Many of those workers who are likely to be included in the bottom bracket are “more likely to be doing jobs that appear more readily doable by machines or computers”, such as retail cashiers and receptionists.
That meant employers could turn to robots and automation instead as staff become more expensive to employ.
The minimum wage is set to rise to more than £8.50 an hour in 2020, but Labour has pledged to increase it to the level of the Living Wage, which is expected to be at least £10 per hour by 2020.
Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has vowed to protect workers from the threat posed by robots. But the IFS analysis suggests the party’s 2017 manifesto pledge to increase the minimum wage over and above what is currently planned could leave workers more vulnerable.
Agnes Norris Keiller, a research economist at the IFS and an author of the research, said: “Beyond some point, a higher minimum must start affecting employment, and we do not know where that point is.
“Even higher rates, as proposed for example by the Labour Party, would bring even more employees in more automatable jobs into the minimum wage net.”
♦ Jeremy Corbyn is trying to have his “cake and eat it” on Brexit and should come out and oppose the UK leaving the European Union, Tony Blair has said.
The former prime minister said Labour’s position was “confusing” and that it should “show people why Brexit isn’t and never was the answer”.
He said: “If Labour continues to go along with Brexit and insists on leaving the single market, the handmaiden of Brexit will have been the timidity of Labour.”
Mr Blair’s assessment was set out in an article published today on his Institute for Global Change website.