UK Business Faces a Perfect Squeeze: Regulation, Labour Costs, and a PE Hangover

The government is finally acknowledging that its own policies are strangling British business. The Treasury is considering slowing minimum wage increases for under-21s after the rate for 18-to-20-year-olds surged 8.5% this year to £10.85 an hour — more than double the 4.1% rise for over-21s. Nearly one million 16-to-24-year-olds are now neither working nor studying, and ministers are examining the Dutch model where the minimum wage drops sharply with age. Simultaneously,...