LAST YEAR Warwick North West, a company making windows and doors in Bootle, near Liverpool, invested £1m ($1.4m) in uPVC-sawing machinery and other upgrades. To handle the increased output, Greg Johnson, the managing director, reckoned on adding eight people to the assembly team, boosting the total staff to 128. Now the extra jobs are on hold. Increases in employers’ national-insurance contributions (NICs, a payroll tax) and the national living wage (NLW, the legal minimum) have added £300,000 a year to Warwick’s costs.