if a place is doin well hell yeah ask for a payrise when i got laoid off i was offered a job as a nechanic at a mot sattion and he only offered min wage as that all he could afford then 10 mins off chatting he told me he was doin 20 plus mot's a day and just bought a 40k rolling road so in my opinion just wanted to use the recession as a excuse to pay shit wages needless to say i never went there lol