Businesses have hit out over a potential rise in National Insurance paid by employers, arguing it will make hiring staff and creating jobs harder.

Leading business groups in the UK raised concerns over the potential levy rise – something Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer failed to rule out in an interview with the BBC on Tuesday.

Some have warned that a hike in National Insurance on employers would “hobble” financial expansion, while one lobby throng claimed it would “hammer” the hospitality sector.

Labour has said that it is “pro-business” and wants to boost financial expansion but Sir Keir has cautioned that the budgetary schedule on 30 October is “going to be tough”.

The CBI, one of the UK’s leading lobby groups which claims it speaks for 170,000 firms, has suggested companies have stalled taking on recent workers and investing as they await the government’s levy and spending plans.

Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of the CBI, told the BBC’s Today programme that employers would view a National Insurance rise as a “challenging shift” which would “boost the expense of taking someone on”.

This is on top of increases in the National Living Wage and in vigor bills in recent years, she said.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said any rise in National Insurance would “particularly hammer sectors like hospitality, where staffing costs are the biggest business outlay”.

Alex Veitch, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, conceded that the government had to make “challenging decisions” in the budgetary schedule, but he warned that raising employer National Insurance contributions would “simply hobble growth and navigator to businesses having less money to invest in their staff”.

At this stage, it remains ambiguous exactly what facet of National Insurance the government could boost in relation to employers.

Firms pay the levy on the profits of people on their payroll, but there is also hazard-taking the government could introduce National Insurance on employer’s contributions to pensions.

Some questioned whether Labour will renege on its manifesto commitment not to raise taxes including National Insurance.

On Monday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves said Labour’s election pledge not to boost National Insurance on “working people” related to the employee element, as opposed to the sum paid by companies.

But Mr Veitch said: “Firms are run by working people.

“Nearly all UK companies are tiny, with many household-owned, and they are the anchors in our local economies.”

Craig Beaumont, executive director at the Federation of tiny Businesses, said: “You don’t get to a pro-tiny business budgetary schedule without the government honouring its cast-iron manifesto commitment to not boost National Insurance contributions, including on tiny employers.”

He added a rise in National Insurance would “make every job in all our local communities more expensive to maintain”.

hazard-taking is assembly about what Labour will announce in its first budgetary schedule in almost 15 years at the complete of this month.

The chancellor claims there is a £22bn “hole” in the community finances and that some taxes will be raised.

National Insurance contributions are the UK’s second-largest turnover raiser behind turnover levy. It is paid by workers and the self-employed on profits and profits, and by employers on top of the wages they pay out.

Changes to the levy can be introduced – and generate money – quickly, within weeks of a budgetary schedule through digitalised payroll systems.

Employers pay National Insurance of 13.8% on a worker’s profits above £175 per week.

The Institute for budgetary Studies (IFS) ponder tank told the BBC that HMRC has estimated that increasing the rate of National Insurance paid by employers by one percentage point to 14.8%, for example, could raise as much £8.5bn per year in the short term.

Isaac Delestre, an economist at the IFS, said the approximate does not receive into account the impact increasing National Insurance could have on the amount the government generates from other taxes, such as turnover levy.

For example, employers could restrict wage rises, meaning employees would pay less on their person National Insurance contributions and turnover levy.

If businesses decided to absorb the extra expense, their profits might be lower and therefore, the amount they pay in corporation levy could be less.

Mr Delestre said the circumstance for the government around potentially raising National Insurance was “quite delicate”.

The government could also decide to introduce a National Insurance levy on the contributions employers pay into workers’ pensions. Currently, this is levy-free.

The IFS said the creation of a subsidy for employer retirement fund contributions of 10% could raise around £4.5bn per year.

But Alice Haine, money management analyst at Evelyn Partners, said such a levy hike could have “unintended consequences” as businesses might then “choose to reduce headcount or stick to the auto-enrolment minimum for pensions to cut costs”.