Ending employee car ownership can exacerbate skills crisis
The government’s decision to end the employee car ownership (ECO) scheme could exacerbate the industry’s skills crisis.
New research has found that 45% of dealers believe ending the scheme will have a negative impact on staff attraction and retention.
This is according to May’s Startline Used Car Tracker, which also found that 41% of dealers believe a ‘lot’ of government actions are negatively affecting dealerships.
Paul Burgess, CEO at Startline Motor Finance, said: “Attracting and keeping good quality staff remains an issue for many dealerships and the ending of ECO schemes by the Chancellor planned for next year is clearly felt to remove a key element of employee benefits packages.”
Government policy
Burgess continued: “What is perhaps noteworthy is that a large number of dealers – more than four out of 10 – also feel that this is part of a pattern from the government, that they are just generally making life quite difficult for dealers.
“Perhaps everything from higher employee national insurance to substantially increased levels of minimum wage can be placed under this heading although, on the other side of the balance sheet, we now have sensible revisions to the Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate.”
ECO schemes enable dealer employees to buy new cars at highly discounted prices on short term leases with low repayments while attracting no benefit-in-kind or National Insurance payments. At the end of each cycle, many vehicles go directly into dealer stock.
