With the increase in the prices of metals and raw materials, a number of SME leaders, seeing their margins melt, have little latitude to increase their employees. Under these conditions, some study tailor -made devices.
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“It is not easy for employees, but it is not easy for us either.” From the Chablisien, where he runs a small trading company, Olivier Tricon soupire. “After two years to undergo the covid and the difficulties to find employees”, inflation is getting involved. Impossible to escape it when you live and work in the middle of the striated hillsides of vines. “In our campaigns, everyone moves by car, everyone is dependent on the increase in fuel prices. So, I paid the Macron bonus, and I thought of giving 50 euros more per month to My twenty employees. But with the charges, they touched 39 euros, and I cost me 75. Everyone was a loser, “he observes. For this boss who started “at the bottom of the ladder”, there is no question of not making a gesture for his team. So, it is decided: in July, “[he will increase] everyone by 3 %, to try to compensate for the effect of inflation on purchasing power.” “And who knows, it will limit may -Itre the inclinations of my guys to leave elsewhere … “
In Mérignac, in the suburbs of Bordeaux, Myriam King, at the head of an SME of around fifty people specializing in the maintenance of offices and common areas of building, has the feeling of being on the wall. “Given the price of housing in Bordeaux, people will live in the countryside,” she says. “So now some tell me that they can no longer come and work because petrol is too expensive. We are obliged to yield and grant increases, otherwise they do not come to work. “
Vincent Roche, lawyer within the Fidere firm, expert in social law, confirms it: “Our customers ask us more and more questions about how to support the purchasing power of their employees, without taking Risk and without putting the accounts of the company in danger. “In seven months, the minimum wage was revalued three times, an increase of 5.9 % in one year. The branch negotiations conducted so far have resulted in wage increases of around 3 %, compared to 1 % in recent years. Not enough, however, to catch up with inflation, which reached 5.2 % in May. “We have already increased wages [early 2022], and we should start again,” continues M me King, in Mérignac. “But me, price increases with customers, I only do them once a year.”
“A really high level of uncertainty”
At the head of Lamazuna, an SME that manufactures zero waste cosmetics, Laëtitia Van de Walle watches, with anxiety the curve of its sales. “We have already increased all non-managers by indexing them on inflation, and we compensated for the increase in mutual contributions. We would like to do more, but it would still be necessary that the turnover follows. So, We refer the discussion to October, and too bad if it groans a little. “In the meantime, the owner of this company installed in the Drômoise campaign discusses with its employees who claim a” carpooling bonus “. While in Niort, the boss of an industrial company tears his hair: how to give a boost to the workers who make 60 kilometers of car to come to the factory without penalizing those who come by bike?
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