Years ago a mate had a pest control business and he employed four men.
As Government charges and regulations ate into his already slim profit margin he got rid of the employees.
He used the simple expedient of setting them up as contractors; they still worked for him but all concerned came out better off.

is Mine,
isn't it a sad indictment when an economy is so badly managed that only the exploiting of loopholes can make people get by ?

Individual,
It wasn’t really a loophole and they were all better off.
The mate was relieved of much responsibility and extra paperwork
His former employees were now responsible for their own insurance etc. but they could now claim more expenses, notably the cost of fuel to get them to work, something that all Governments have denied those who are employees and not businessmen.

they were all better off.
is Mise,
I don't doubt that for one moment, I'm thinking of the others who became affected by the flow-on. When one lot gets more, another lot gets less ! As soon as one lot gets more another lot instantly feels entitled to get more also.
It's merely a Dog chasing its tail.
We'll see that happening in the next few weeks when wages go up by ten times less than what everything else will go up by !
Brace yourself for increased taxes blamed on the previous Govt.

Hey Aiden,
"If the cost of business goes up 8%, why would they have to raise their prices nearly double that?"
It's called 'markup', maintaining a certain amount of profit, based on your costs.

I'm sure you know about PE ratios and ROI far better than me Aiden.

You know the one subject kids don't learn about in school?

- Money -

We don't prepare our kids to be entrepreneurs.
That would require an understanding of money, accounting, business, tax, real estate and loans.
Our kids in public schools are prepared for a life of servitude as employees, or if they're lucky academics.
Where private school kids are prepared for a life of owning people, as employers or again they become academics.

The reason I think the system is built this way is simple.
Rich people will always need people beneath them to do the things they don't want to do.

- Like emptying the bins and cleaning the toilets -

That requires different classes of people.

People pay a fortune sending their kids to private schools so that they don't have to do that when they grow up, but we don't really teach or prepare our kids to be entrepreneurs, that's outside the system, it doesn't serve it.

I think there's more emphasis on getting kids into University these days because it serves a bigger political agenda.
- If you can get people to glue themselves to roads or chain themselves to trees, then for one, that makes the country less productive, which means people need to swipe their credit cards more to pay for their living expenses (keep them all poor) and secondly they become more indoctrinated to preferred global agendas, such as climate change and identity politics, and these things do serve the system.