UK Living Wage up to

Do the yanks have a similar thing? I bet not. Business has to be competitive if you don't like your wage work somewhere else. If you think you are worth more then prove it, if you need better skills get them. We have the minimum wage as a legal requirement anything else should be down to individual firms. If You pay more then you get better staff, thought it was called a free market economy.

I'm not sure where I stand on this, I'm all for paying a fare wage even the minimum wage. But the London living wage is now bordering on paying unskilled labour nearly £500 a week, which is kind of hard to justify and puts me off even considering taking on a general dogsbody. If I'm paying someone that then I want a return of more than £500 just for the headache it entails by taking someone on.....

I think the compulsory minimum wage is fair, it's tiered depending on age and there's no excuse for companies not to pay.

But it's also a fair point, if you want the best staff and to get the best return out of them, then they needed to be rewarded. If you stick to the minimum wage then its not a major surprise if you don't attract many employee superstars. 

I think companies and employees can work that out for themselves can't they? Especially as the days of recession are behind us and the economy is supposedly on the up?

We employ above the Living wage.  However, to be honest with you we have a very small and dilligent team who are constantly on the ball and give the company a really good reputation.  Employees are unskilled and the job is pretty simple- but not easy.  I think it's all down to the type of job and type of employee really.

According to the Guardian, Citizen UK leader, Rev Graham Hunter is going to turn up to the Associated British Food’s annual shareholder meeting on Friday dressed as Scrooge

They own the Primark Chain and Citizen UK want to make the point about not paying employees the living wage. I imagine this will get some more publicity as the week goes on!