Price of survival As wages and tax hikes pile on the pressure, c-store retailers across the country

Price of survival As wages and tax hikes pile on the pressure, c-store retailers across the country are facing frozen investments, squeezed margins, and a system that is leaving them behind Hammered by the double whammy of a rise in National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and an increase in the National Living Wage (NLW), plus reductions in business rate relief, convenience store owners are being forced to take some harsh and radical decisions to stay afloat, finds Asian Trader. From April, Employers’ NICs increased from 13.8 percent to 15 per cent, while the threshold – the point at which employers begin to pay NI on an individual’s salary – has been reduced from £9,100 to £5,000. To put this in perspective, in a typical c-store (nine colleagues, 196 total paid hours per week), the change in NIC will result in an increase from £8,170 per year to around £12,606 per year in the business’s annual payroll bill.