Рост страховых взносов и минимальной зарплаты привели к ликвидации 24-летней фирмы по производству спортивной одежды в Эствуде

All staff made redundant as 24-year-old Eastwood firm enters liquidation It was forced to increase prices after changes to NI contributions and the national minimum wage A decades-old Nottinghamshire firm has entered liquidation and made all of its staff redundant after being doomed by National Insurance and minimum wage rises. Team Tots Clothing Ltd, which was based in Eastwood and had been incorporated in 2002, had manufactured club-branded leisurewear and served many rugby and football clubs. However, the family-run business entered liquidation on July 28, after decline in its trade became unsustainable. As a result all 17 staff of the King Street firm, including 13 machinists, were made redundant at the end of July. Richard Pinder and Sean Williams of restructuring firm Leonard Curtis, who have been appointed joint liquidators of the long-established company, said its collapse had been attributed to rising employers' NI contributions and national minimum wage increases. Former Chancellor Rachel Reeves raised employers' NI contributions from 13.8 per cent to 15 per cent in 2024, while the national minimum wage increased to £12.71 per hour in April. Team Tots' liquidators said these increased costs had squeezed its profit margins, forcing the small manufacturer to increase its clothing prices by more than 10 per cent. This cost the company some of its smaller customers and in November 2025 one of its largest clients said it would stop buying from the Eastwood firm after January 2026 as it could get cheaper clothes from overseas suppliers. Remaining customers bridged the gap with extra stock orders through to early July 2026, but after this point no replacement orders could be secured and the amount of sales being made could no longer pay for the company's workforce. Leonard Curtis said support was being provided to the workers who had been redundant, with liquidators helping them to process claims via the government’s Redundancy Payments Service (RPS). The RPS is a government service that pays statutory redundancy, unpaid wages, holiday pay, and notice pay to employees when their employer becomes formally insolvent and cannot pay. A report filed by Team Tots' liquidators said that its headcount had fallen from 21 in 2021 to 17 in 2023/2024 as its fortunes worsened.