In Peckham, in southeast London, the owners of Persepolis tell the BBC about the challenges of keeping their business afloat following increases in social security contributions and the minimum wage. “We have a stack of résumés in the office; we’d like to hire everyone, but we can’t.”
“Our business survives only because we work 80 or 90 hours a week”. This is the complaint made by Jamshid Golshan Ebrahimi, who, along with his wife Sally Butcher, runs Persepolis, a restaurant and shop in the London neighborhood of Peckham. Interviewed by the BBC on the eve of the new British budget, the two owners described how difficult it has become to cover the costs of running a restaurant business, including social security contributions, wages, and rising raw material prices. This situation leaves no room for new hires, despite the availability of candidates.
“I have a stack of resumes in my office and I’d love to hire everyone, but we can’t,” explains Ebrahimi. The couple is asking the government for more incentives to hire apprentices and a reduction in employer contributions. According to the owners, the National Insurance increases introduced in the 2024 budget have had even worse consequences than anticipated: their net income has fallen by 25%.
And it’s not just labor costs that are weighing on the bottom line. “The price of everything has gone up, while the bank balance has gone down,” says Ebrahimi, citing a particularly telling example: a tray of tomatoes that used to cost 3.60 pounds now costs 9.50. The increase in the minimum wage is also contributing to higher labor costs. For Butcher, 65, the consequence is clear: in the hospitality industry, people work longer hours than they used to, and reducing hours is not a financially viable option.
Hiring young people has become too expensive
Persepolis’s struggles are also affecting career opportunities for the younger generation. Rowan Clark, 29, has been the head chef at the restaurant for five years. After leaving university, he found an opportunity to enter the workforce in the restaurant industry, describing it as “the safety net that cushioned my fall”. Today, however, he observes that opportunities for young graduates and non-graduates alike are dwindling.
For this reason, he is calling for more subsidized apprenticeships, so that businesses can cover part of the costs and hire staff even without experience. This request is shared by BusinessLDN, an organization representing approximately 170 businesses in the capital. Its CEO, John Dickie, is urging measures to make it less expensive to hire young people who are neither in education nor employment, as well as greater fiscal stability that allows companies to plan for the future. Ebrahimi calls for action on several fronts: social security contributions, VAT, and support for apprenticeships. “The government should take care of us. It should introduce more apprenticeships, subsidize part of the wages and VAT, and reduce National Insurance. If there’s the will, there are many things that can be done,” he says.
The British Treasury responded by highlighting the incentives already in place for businesses, including payroll tax relief for employers who hire people under 21 and apprentices under 25, as well as measures to curb utility bills and reduce commercial rates. Regarding potential tax changes, the ministry referred to the decisions that will be announced as part of the budget bill.
Meanwhile, in Persepolis, business owners continue to grapple with endless shifts and a pile of job applications that cannot all be turned into contracts. The problem for them isn’t finding people willing to work—it’s being able to afford to hire them.
