Labour’s answer to a recession is more costs of employers!

Newshub reports:

Labour is luring voters with the tantalising prospect of another day off making Matariki an official public holiday, but the party may not get it across the line. …

“The issue, of course, is that it’s another public holiday that employers have to pay for,” National Party leader Judith Collins said on Monday.

ACT leader David Seymour said Ardern is “in la la land”. 

“Small businesses don’t need another day off. They need this Government to take the next three years off. It just means another additional cost for businesses.”

The economy is in recession, borders may stay closed for years and Labour’s solution is to increase costs further on employers.

I’m all in favour of Matariki replacing an existing holiday such as Queen’s Birthday or Labour Day, but imposing an extra public holiday on employers is just going to punish them.

Many people don’t realise that the cost to some businesses of a public holiday isn’t just the costs of paying staff for not working, but the foregone revenue.

I used to work for a small advertising and design agency. It had around a dozen staff and the owners sometimes took home less in pay than the receptionist.

Say you have eight creative staff who normally do six chargeable hours a day at $100 an hour. That extra day’s leave means you lose around $5,000 in revenue. That would often be the entire profit for the month gone.

This policy just reminds me that almost no Labour Minister has worked in the private sector, let alone for a small business.