Cridland is an Old-School commercial exploiter of the poor, pushing an old-fashioned view.

We all know, by now, that the evidence shows a minimum wage does not lead to mass redundancies – Cridland mentions it himself. Increasing the amount that is payable – to just less than the actual cost of living, let’s not forget – is unlikely to have that effect either, no matter what he says.

Look at Norway, David Cameron’s current least-favourite country. The gap between workers’ and bosses’ pay is very narrow and that country has one of the highest employment rates, with the best standard of living in the world.

He’s just scaremongering. Good riddance to him.

The head of Britain’s leading employers’ organisation on Tuesday described the government’s “national living wage” as a gamble and warned it would speed up the replacement of workers by machines if business found it too expensive.

John Cridland, outgoing director general of the CBI, said it was a “big ask” for firms that employed large numbers of low-paid staff to raise wages by 5% a year to £9 an hour by 2020. He added that an unintended consequence of a laudable aim might be a “labour light” service sector.

Source: National living wage is a gamble, says CBI boss | Business | The Guardian