Originally Posted by inv4zn (Post 8844702)

^As previously stated, if your business tanks because of an extra $4 an hour you have to pay an employee, you're doing something wrong to begin with.

Originally Posted by jackal (Post 8880994)

i just thought i would give a real number to this statement. from dec 1st to dec 15th i paid out 2716.25 employee hours

so on an increase of $4 /hour i'm looking at paying out 10865 more per pay period. 282490 more per year. that's not a small amount

Originally Posted by welfare (Post 8881007)

Ahhh. Just what BC needs. More inflation

Originally Posted by jackal (Post 8880990)

here are my .02 cents real quick.
i'm a small business owner some might say medium business owner.
i currently employ 44 people and run a restaurant.
my wages range from 11.5 up to 17.50

i don't care if min wages went up to 30 an hour but i can promise that the day after all my pricing will scale accordingly. realistically for people earning minimum wage i can see how a bump in pay can help them in certain aspects of their lives. i think its fair to assume that even if minimum wages increased by 20% inflation would claw back a decent portion of that increase.

imo the people that get really hit hard are the people earning in the 15-25/ hour range. it's very unlikely that people in that range will see any significant increase in pay and after price inflation more then likely will be far worse off then before a large min wage hike. min wage needs to rise but imo it needs to be gradual. i would also have little issue with tying min wage to inflation. (also assuming if we ever went into recession then min wage has the potential to drop) although i'm no economist, maybe this is a recipe for long term hyper inflation.

oh one other point. i would really like the training wage to come back. not 500 hours but realistically it takes probably 100-150 hours of me having to overstaff in order to get someone up to speed and not need help constantly. the number of dollars wasted training young or inexperienced employees in my line of work is honestly mind boggling.

Originally Posted by 68style (Post 8881013)

I watched a presentation recently by an absolutely wonderful older gentleman that's heavily involved in community outreach, there's a staggering number of programs in Vancouver just to help people in disadvantaged situations or from the DTES get work... if you see them on the street begging for money, they are simply not even trying at all to participate in society. Even the casino that's now part of Rogers Arena, as part of its construction agreement with the City of Vancouver, must employ a certain percentage of its staff from the DTES... and there are so many workshops this man sponsors for people to make arts and crafts and other things to build businesses into viable incomes or get into catering companies to learn how to run a business and whatnot.

It's quite impressive actually. It really makes me wonder about these morons who put up tents and squat for free housing and make signs asking for money... there is actually a TONNE of help available that we don't even know about and that the city actively promotes from within into almost every new project that is being constructed in downtown.

I will check the guy's name and organization when I go home and update this post if anyone wants to check it out. I know my eyes were opened as to what's actually being done.

Originally Posted by 68style (Post 8881013)

I watched a presentation recently by an absolutely wonderful older gentleman that's heavily involved in community outreach, there's a staggering number of programs in Vancouver just to help people in disadvantaged situations or from the DTES get work... if you see them on the street begging for money, they are simply not even trying at all to participate in society. Even the casino that's now part of Rogers Arena, as part of its construction agreement with the City of Vancouver, must employ a certain percentage of its staff from the DTES... and there are so many workshops this man sponsors for people to make arts and crafts and other things to build businesses into viable incomes or get into catering companies to learn how to run a business and whatnot.

It's quite impressive actually. It really makes me wonder about these morons who put up tents and squat for free housing and make signs asking for money... there is actually a TONNE of help available that we don't even know about and that the city actively promotes from within into almost every new project that is being constructed in downtown.

Originally Posted by jackal (Post 8880990)

i currently employ 44 people and run a restaurant.
my wages range from 11.5 up to 17.50

Originally Posted by jackal (Post 8880994)

i just thought i would give a real number to this statement. from dec 1st to dec 15th i paid out 2716.25 employee hours
so on an increase of $4 /hour i'm looking at paying out 10865 more per pay period. 282490 more per year. that's not a small amount

Originally Posted by MSREE (Post 8881012)

Minimum wage increase would definitely help me as I havent worked in over a year and looking for something small to try and get back into the work force while simultaneously healing. I predict I wont be well enough for at least another 6 months to a year to actively look for full time work.

Originally Posted by MSREE (Post 8881012)

Tbh, if people are working even menial jobs....thats better than having people in the DTES who drink and do drugs out in the open all day every day and relying on social assistance, dont you think?

Originally Posted by jackal (Post 8880990)

realistically it takes probably 100-150 hours of me having to overstaff in order to get someone up to speed.

Originally Posted by BIC_BAWS (Post 8881021)

125 avg overstaff hours * $14.50 avg hourly rate = $1,812.50 per new hire

Originally Posted by quasi (Post 8881026)

It's even more then that, I know our burdens where I work (CPP, UIC, WCB, Vac & Stat Pay) are 22.08% (obviously varies company to company) but you have to tack something on.

Originally Posted by Rallydrv (Post 8881029)

with wage increases here and corporate tax cuts in the states /fear of NAFTA. more incentive for manufacturing jobs to move shops to US. Already quite a few medium size manufacturing business are being poached by various US states giving more incentive to move.

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp (Post 8881033)

All these talk about increasing min wage people have then though about how this would push more business to use AI and robots to take over the current job. Don't believe me. Just look at McDonalds, Superstore, Shoppers, Price smart, A&W etc etc. A lot of cashier are replace by self-serve check out. I see so many cashier are replace already and as AI gets better and better more jobs are going to replace. Even office jobs are being replace. Accountant, Lawyers, Financial advisor, Investment advisor, Real estate, marketing advisor etc etc.

As AI gets better and better it will be able to perform better the human for min wage jobs and gets cheaper as well. So the big crop will use more and more AI while the medium business still start using AI as well once the price is cheap enough. So you have small business who can't afford AI to increase production while paying more. Starting small business will only get harder and harder.

Originally Posted by MSREE (Post 8881020)

Yep I can confirm that. I ran an office dt for temp work. We paid $13 base and if you were a skilled trades worker it was $15+. All they needed to do was show up in long pants and work and theyd get paid same day at 3pm by cheque.
Most people living in DTES rely on social assistance. So on welfare day, temp agencies and construction takes a huge hit the whole week. Welfare day is also the day of the month where the most reported overdoses/drug related deaths happen. There is work available for those who are willing, but for many drugs/alcohol take priority. Even for the shelters in DT, they require no drug paraphernalia and you cant be high/drunk....but many will choose to sleep on the street. Alot of temp agencies do heavy marketing too, so they provide extras to keep people coming back. Some even do deals with pubs, like get a free meal if you work consecutively for a week, things like that. There are a ton of people who are able to work, but in DTES Welfare week is known as "Mardi Gras" .... Everybody just gets blitzed cuz they can on the govts $.

Originally Posted by westopher (Post 8881038)

I think most of the companies doing it are firing on all cylinders with it already for the most part, but I see what you are getting at.
We will need to look at living wages for the unemployed if we don’t want to be a third world country for when that happens, so sorry to be the bearer of bad news for those that are afraid of taxes, and covering for poor people. Everything will only get worse from here. Time for massive tax breaks for small businesses that employ multiple people, and time to fuck corporations with taxes that push for automation.

Originally Posted by Rallydrv (Post 8881029)

with wage increases here and corporate tax cuts in the states /fear of NAFTA. more incentive for manufacturing jobs to move shops to US. Already quite a few medium size manufacturing business are being poached by various US states giving more incentive to move.

Originally Posted by kr4l (Post 8881093)

What I don’t understand is why are you guys still relating a minimum wage hike to multi million dollar businesses? They don’t give a shit about the minimum wage because it will not effect them.

Open your minds a little. The small businesses out there that will be effected. You know, the people that actually have to work there ass off

Originally Posted by Mr.HappySilp (Post 8881242)

Maybe you should reread what I wrote. Did I disagree about raising min wage? I was merely pointing out with min wage increase more and more big crop will be looking at AI to replace as many min wage workers as possible. Small and medium size business don't have the financial backing to do that so they end paying more to their workers.

LOL if multi million dollar business don't care about min wage they wouldn't be investing more into AI and having them take over. Look around some of the major big crop chain such as Superstore, McDonalds, Wal-mart, Aamazon, Rogers, Telus etc etc and see what they have done to cut back on min wage workers with AI.

Big Crop hires a lot more people than your medium or small business. A lot more. Is a lose lose situation. Don't raise min wage and people complain yet jobs might be replace by AI later. Raise min wage and a lot of people lose their job faster since it will push big crop to invest more in AI. Those who can keep their min wage job will make more money but for how long?

I don't have the answer on how we can solve this issue. Seems like a lot of jobs are replace already by AI and robots already. I read an article somewhere that predicted in the next 20 years half of the jobs globally will be replace by AI and robots. So what's going to happen? Should those who lost their jobs just starve to death, how will the gov react to it? More EI?More low income assistant? universal wage? who will pay for universal wage? More tax to crop to pay for universal wage? I think the gov or society needs to look and plan for the future since this model of min wage isn't working and is bound to fail in the future.

Originally Posted by BIC_BAWS (Post 8881021)

Average pay = $14.50

Finding the average pay cheque paid per employee:
2716.25 monthly hours / 44 employees = 61.73hrs/employee
61.73hrs/employee x $14.50 avg hourly rate = $895.09

If you were to find how many more employees he could pay for with that increase:
$10,865 / $895.09 = 12.14 more employees

If we assume jackal can only afford the increase of $10,865/mo, and would have otherwise contributed that by hiring more, that’s 12 employees per pay period that he could have hired, but now would not as that money has been given to the 44 existing employees.


Try contract work, they usually have low requirements and it’s a good way to get back into the workforce.

Those menial jobs are readily available, like 68Style said, “if you see them on the street begging for money, they are simply not even trying at all to participate in society”. Of course they have to sort out their addictions and issues first.

BUT do you really think employers would be incentivized to hire people when the minimum wage goes up? By the above scenario calculations, it could have paid for 12 more employees, not to including the additional training costs (below) that comes associated with hiring (while not including all hiring costs).

125 avg overstaff hours * $14.50 avg hourly rate = $1,812.50 per new hire

Edit: If we were thinking of a business or white collared industry, I suspect the effect of a min wage increase would be that companies would work their existing employees harder and contract the work out more often. Yay! Contracted work = more pay for sub-contractors! Nope. That's only if you assume that these sub-contractors are only doing 1 contract and can take on the job themselves without additional resources. This increase would effectively move the labour cost for the company onto the sub-contractor, while cost of work for the company would be the same as before. Does this get people more jobs? Would the subcontractors start a company to hire more people to take on the jobs? Unlikely.