United Kingdom's new government increases minimum wage to £8.72

United Kingdom's Prime Minister Boris Johnson today announced that the minimum wage in the country would be increased by four times over the inflation rate starting next year.

Starting April, the government will sanction a 6.2 per cent increase in the national living wage for people 25 an above. The minimum wage now will be £8.72. Earlier, it was £8.21.

The current UK inflation rate is 1.5 per cent. Following the EU referendum in 2016, the imports price went up.

This is the biggest Conservative party victory since the 1980s.

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In his campaign, Johnson had said that more investment would be brought in to reverse 10 years of austerity measures that were done by previous governments.

"Raising wage floors will pile further pressure on cash flow and eat into training and investment budgets. For this policy to be sustainable, the government must offset these costs by reducing others and impose a moratorium on any further upfront costs for business", said the British Chambers of Commerce's co-executive director Hannah Essex.

Johnson recently won the UK general election after a long Brexit deadlock. His government said that three million people would benefit from the increase.

(With inputs from agencies)