Jan Higgins wrote:Barry, I disagree with one small point which is employment laws should favour the employer.
Employment laws should not favour either employer or employee they should quite simply be fair to both sides, both are equally important because without one you could not have the other.
Clearly Jan in a free market the employee must get something out of the arrangement, an agreed salary and possible other benefits depending on what the market in that particular industry demands to get the quality of employee required, pension/co car/PME/GIP for instance.
But, at the end of the day I, as an employer, must see that benefiting me in order to employ someone. I need the position to pay for itself through generating sufficient turnover and profit to cover its costs plus a margin. I would also expect that the margin should be sufficient to be worth the risks that I take in employing someone.
Many of those risks are associated with getting the right employee but also those risks are to do with employment legislation. The higher the risks the more margin I need to make taking those risks. How robust is the business plan? What are the chances of this new investment mot meeting the targets needed to produce any profit, let alone the required margin?
If government reduces those risks associated with legislation then it would reduce or remove one barrier to a decision. Often such decisions are made on a marginal basis. On the other hand if a government was to tighten employment legislation to increase job security for instance the risks are raised and therefore would mitigate against that decision.
At the end of the day Jan - I and any businessman or woman would make the decision to employ based on the benefits their business will get out of it. So if employment law favours the employer you will get more jobs, if not then you will get less jobs created - in fact a lot less jobs.
