Although it is much too early to be certain that this will be the case, two factors support such a theory:

• The government says it has delayed the national minimum wage increase decision partly to allow the LPC to amass an additional two months' worth of data on the state of the UK economy. As we can be reasonably confident that the resulting economic picture will be pretty dire, the accumulated evidence is likely to favour a lower increase.
• Delaying the announcement of this year's increase by three months, while keeping the October 2009 implementation date unchanged, effectively cuts employers' preparation time significantly. This suggests that the burden on employers' paybills of meeting their national minimum wage obligations may not be severe.

What is certain is that feelings will be heightened and debate will be lively regarding the October 2009 national minimum wage increase. We have recently reported that the BCC favours a freeze in the national minimum wage, while the TUC wants to see it raised to at least £6.10 per hour and the British Retail Consortium favours an increase "on the lower side of average earnings".

As always, watch this space for more...