In the heart of the Empordà, a small hotel businessman turns on the lights of his establishment with the same routine as always. His business, a modest family restaurant, survives with effort and dedication. It is not a big law firm or a multinational with millionaire budgets, but a project built with sweat, sacrifices and love for gastronomy. And yet, every day that passes, he feels that he is more stifled, more trapped in a system that does not allow him to get ahead.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about shorter working hours and work-life balance. In theory, an excellent idea: fewer working hours and a better quality of life for employees. However, when translated into the reality of a small business owner who is barely making ends meet, the accounts start to shake.
This entrepreneur has two essential workers for his business: a kitchen maid and a waitress, both of whom work full time. Their salary is not exorbitant, but it is fair and decent. However, in addition to that salary, he has to face an additional cost of 700 euros in contributions for each of them. In other words, for each net salary of 1,200 or 1,300 euros, the real cost to the company amounts to almost 2,000 euros. And to this must be added the loans, the ICOs he applied for to survive the pandemic, the investments in improvements for the premises, the taxes that never stop rising.
And if all this is already complicated, what happens when one of your employees takes a sick leave? In a large company, a sick leave is just a setback. In a small business in a village where efficient labor is scarce, a sick leave is a guaranteed micro-infarction. There is no margin to replace anyone without generating an unbearable expense, nor workers at the door waiting to come in. Sometimes, the entrepreneur must fill the position himself, working endless hours without a break, sacrificing his personal life and health so as not to lose what little he has.
«Is this logical?» she wonders as she reviews the accounts at the end of the month, anguished with the knowledge that, if one month things don’t go well, there will be no way to cover expenses. It’s not that she doesn’t value the work of her employees, on the contrary. He knows they deserve it, and probably more. But the fiscal and social burden is so high that hiring more staff is practically unthinkable. What if that ratio were different? What if instead of paying 700 euros to Social Security, you could pay 300 and the rest would go to your employees’ salaries? With a lower cost for the employer and a higher salary for them, wouldn’t there be more hires? Wouldn’t there be a reduction in underground employment?
The small businessman feels he is trapped in a system that suffocates him. Meanwhile, large corporations find ways to optimize their tax burden, diversify their resources and operate with margins that are unattainable for them. At the end of the month, when it’s time to pay payroll, taxes and Social Security, he is consumed by worry. «If I’m like this with two employees, how does someone with five or more do it?»
The reduction of working hours is a right and a social advance, yes, but the question remains: who bears the burden of these measures? A small businessman does not have the structure of a large firm or the margin of a multinational. The fiscal and labor pressure is not measured with the same yardstick, although the obligations are similar.
Thus, the owner of the small restaurant goes ahead, with uncertainty as his traveling companion. He wants to offer good conditions, he wants to grow, but the system hinders him. In the meantime, he wonders if anyone, in the high offices where decisions are made, has ever put himself in his place. Because he is not a big businessman, nor a speculator. He is just another worker, struggling not to lose everything.
Is it really worth it…?
How many colleagues have gone from owning their own business to being part of a staff?
How many entrepreneurs of restaurants, rural houses, small businesses, plumbers… have left behind their company, where they not only earned a living, but also hired apprentices, to become employees and free themselves from the monthly anguish of making ends meet?
How many…?
I know of several.
In my case, if this system were not unfeasible, I would probably have three people instead of one. If the system for having employees were not so suffocating, everything could really change. If the prospective worker were not crushed for having several contracts, indeed, if he were pressed and rewarded for working instead of being literally punished every year in his tax return for having two payers, then he would ask himself the same question as everyone else: «Is it really worth it?
From MasTorrencito we wish you a good day and may your dogs be with you!!!!
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