Ditto here, Squeaks was the last person I employed (though that was only on a self employed basis)
But for god knows how many years I had people working for me, up to 4 at one point.
Over the years I've had more people work for me than I can count, it has it's bonus's of course, but the more you take on, the more of an overhead you yourself become.
But employing is a right pain in the backside.
To do it properly you have to put them on the books, get employers liability, and so on and so forth.
It gets expensive...
You really need to have the right type of work too.
Anyway, putting up with their endless excuses is really irritating to say the least.
Finding a good un' is really very difficult to
I think you will find that as you are only employing one person, laying him off won't be a problem for you, plus he's only been working for you 6 months, so redundancy not an issue.
The guy is obviously not up to the job, cut and run dude....
If you want to grow, and make REALLY big money, then you need to employ, one man can only do so much work in a day afterall, but it can take a lot of time to find someone reliable.
If you are happy to simply make a good income, and by good I mean anything between say, £500 and £900 per week (and yes, I know there are some out there who can top a grand a week as a sole trader, but they are few and far between) then stick as a sole trader.
Ian