For decades, retailers have worked around health care laws by replacing full time employees with part-timers and seasonal helpers.
You want benefits? Sorry. Go someplace else.
But Federal heath care reforms aim to change all that, and retailers across the nation will have to reconfigure their business plans.
Under proposed legislation, businesses would be required to offer health care to their part-time employees. Already the bill’s early mandates require retailers to extend benefits for children up to age 26, which tacks on an average of 2.5 percent to the cost of health insurance.
But that’s nothing compared to what’s coming down the pike in 2014, when companies with least 50 full-time employees must begin providing affordable coverage or pay a penalty.
Often, seasonal employees work more than 30 hours a week and so will other part-time employees.
For the largest industry in the world, this is a huge issue. If the government wants to make new changes or subsidize retailers who are already working on tight markets. Mom and pop retailers will not likely survive and consumers will have to absorb the costs.
Source: HRE Online, June 2011
