The Governments drive to force employees back into the office, even though they have been, and continue to, work from home (an arrangement that I am sure many employers find beneficial) amounts to nothing more than a job tax, trying to tax people for having a job.
I ran the numbers:
ONS says average wage in 2020 is £471 per week, and to travel in to London from my home in Crawley (as an example) would cost 33% of the take home pay (after taxes) 38% if I have to take the Tube, you can download my calculations here. this means that you’d ultimately pay out over fifty-two per cent of your income in deductions and costs for going to work, leaving somebody whose annual salary is just under £24.5k with £11633 to pay their rent, council tax, feed and clothe themselves and their family.
The Government’s drive to cause division between those who do work from home and those that can’t is a just a further tactic to distract from whatever job that they should be getting on with, be it their oven ready Brexit deal, securing new trade opportunities for the country, maybe even protecting us from a global pandemic!
I can think of numerous reasons not to pull staff back in to the office, especially if they are working efficiently from home.
The main one would be that with it being impossible to ensure their safety from COVID on the commute you don’t want one catching it and transmitting it to all your other staff in the office causing all your staff to be off sick at once.
I should be up to employers when or if they want or need staff back in the office.
Last of all don’t forget that during last year’s election, they pledged to keep taxes low:
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