Britain's biggest business lobby has in a report urged Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to tackle the chronic worker shortage which is hurting the economy in his 15th March budget. Nearly two in three of the capital’s firms are struggling to fill vacancies, according to research carried out by BusinessLDN, Federation of Small Businesses, Confederation of British Industry and the London Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
Some 77 per cent of companies are trying to hire staff, but today’s research suggests lots of those roles will end up unfilled. The lobby groups has produced the research to illustrate the scale of labour scarcity London firms are grappling with to incentivise the Chancellor to free up funds to boost the jobs market at the budget on 15 March.
Britain’s jobs market has been running extremely tight since the country emerged from Covid-19 lockdown measures, mainly due to over 500,000 exiting the workforce.
UK unemployment is at a multi decade low and the ratio of vacancies to jobless people is at historic highs. However, existing skill sets among available workers are failing to fulfil businesses’ needs.
Over half of the more than 1,000 businesses surveyed by Survation said that the biggest recruitment roadblock “is a low number of suitable applicants with the required skills”.
“Skills shortages not only stunt business growth and affect employment but also have long-term implications for the future of our young professionals,” Richard Burge, chief executive at the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), said.
Rishi Sunak And Jeremy Hunt Visit Lancashire And County Durham
Jeremy Hunt is being called on to help households and businesses are the budget next month (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
“In an environment where demand is outpacing supply, skilled workers are the backbone of our fragile economy,” he added.