The impact of the national minimum wage from next year on outsourcing companies such as Interserve, which employ cleaners and security staff on low wages, is one of those factors the market really should have identified early on.
The warning from the company that such staff would have to be paid more, and that it would take several years for additional costs to be passed on to clients, was taken severely amiss, the shares falling 26p to 599½p.
As luck would have it, the budget in which the surprise increase was announced came only a day after Interserve’s most recent trading update and less than a month after the company had briefed the City on the prospects for its support services activities, which will