Minimum Wage Rise Sparks Perthshire Calculator Shortage as Every Business Does Sums at Once

By our Small Business Correspondent

The planned minimum wage rise prompted a run on calculators across Perth and Kinross this week, as business owners, shift workers and one confused tearoom cat all attempted to do the same sum at the same moment.

Debate has been lively. Some Perthshire employers have warned about the cost; workers have pointed out that everything else in the shop went up without anyone asking them first. A Perth barista summed up the national mood: “Everybody’s maths is right. That’s the problem.”

At a Crieff hardware shop, the owner said he had sold four calculators, two pencils and “an alarming number of erasers” since Monday. “Folk come in, do a sum, rub it out, do it again. One man’s been here since Tuesday. I think he’s doing the national debt.”

The Perthetic’s finance desk has run the numbers and concluded that, under any scenario, a bridie will cost “a wee bit more than last year, which is the most Scottish economic forecast there is”.

The real story: Perth & Kinross business news (The Courier)