Dunelm has unveiled plans to roll out self-serve checkouts across its store estate as retailers up and down the country turn to tech solutions to help mitigate impending rises in labour costs.
The furniture store said the move, which follows a “successful trial”, will see the technology installed across more than 100 stores over the next 18 months, after it warned it did “not anticipate” the scale of proposed rise to National Insurance taxes in April.
“With the technology well developed, and labour costs rising, this programme will pay back in less than three years and delivers a solution we know appeals to many customers,” the retailer said.
“We have a good track record of delivering efficiencies to offset cost increases, and will continue to do so through both operational improvements and targeted longer-term productivity opportunities.”
The rules around class 1 NICs will be changed later this year, such that the threshold at which employers start to pay the secondary rate of NICs will be reduced from £9,100 to £5,000 while the secondary NICs rate is set to rise from 13.8% to 15%. The combined changes announced in the budget are thought to raise as much as £40bn in tax receipts for the government.
The move, which was unveiled by chancellor Rachel Reeves in her November Budget, has attracted widespread criticism. Reeves said she made the change in order to help fix the foundations of the public finances and invest in public services.
Technology services provider Computacenter has said a planned rise in NICs will cost it as much as £5m in 2025, highlighting the scale of the cost pressures that the tax hike will put on large employers.
The tax rise, in combination with a hike in minimum wage rates, has prompted many larger businesses to slow hiring and ramp up efforts to automate human labour.
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