The minimum wage, sick pay and pension changes coming into force in April

The National Minimum Wage (NMW) and National Living Wage (NLW) rates are set to rise from today (April 1, 2019), meaning that beauty businesses will have to be even more careful that they are paying staff the correct minimum wage.

There will also be significant changes to employment laws this month surrounding sick pay, workplace pensions, and maternity and paternity pay. These are the changes you need to get to grips with…

The National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage 

• For those aged 25 and over NLW is rising by 38p (4.8%) an hour from £7.83 to £8.21
  
  
• For those aged 21–24 NMW is rising by 32p (4.3%) an hour from £7.38 to £7.70
  
  
• For those aged 18–20 NMW is rising by 25p (4.2%) an hour from £5.90 to £6.15
  
  
• For apprentices aged under 19, or 19 or over and in the first year of their apprenticeship, NMW is rising by 20p (5.4%) from £3.70 an hour to £3.90.

The hourly wage change depends on your employees age and whether they are an apprentice or an employee.

Statutory sick pay

From April 6 the qualifying criteria for statutory sick pay will change as well as the amount staff will be entitled to earn each week. 

Individuals will need to earn at least £118 per week in order to qualify for weekly payments of £94.25. 

Workplace pensions

The total minimum contributions employers and employees must pay into a workplace pension scheme will increase from 5% to 8% from April 6.

Employers must make a minimum contribution of 3% and employees a minimum contribution of 5%. As an employer, you can chose to pay more and reduce the amount staff need to pay as long as the total contribution still comes to 8%.

Tax goes digital

Beauty salons and spas that are VAT registered will have to keep their VAT business records digitally from April 1 and send in VAT returns using Making Tax Digital (MTD) software. This also applied for those using the VAT flat rate scheme. 

Payslips

The law regarding payslips is also changing, meaning that itemised payslips will now need to be given to all employees. 

Payslips must include the total number of hours worked or a breakdown of hours paid for different types of work and/or different rates of pay. This is effective from April 6. 

Maternity and paternity pay

The rate of pay for maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental pay will increase to £148.68 per week from April 7.