I think this is the most suitable place for this story since every government gets either praised or blamed for employment levels, so here we go:
For the first time ever recorded in the UK, monthly job vacancies topped one million in July.
It is now beginning to look as if - instead of the rising unemployment we were warned-of for various reasons - there will be more job openings than there are people to fill them.
Already we have seen that HGV drivers for example are in huge demand and are seeing the potential for their earnings rising, and it’s looking pretty much as if others too could see a similar improvement if shortages arise as the number of vacancies is indeed beginning to outnumber potential workers.
We do have large numbers of vacancies, but we are still over 200,000 less in employment than pre covid.
The main problem we have is shortages in critical groups, which means employers are going to have to spend an awful lot more on training people to do the jobs.
The days of cheap labour are rapidly coming to an end and we will feel it in inflation.
Generally agreed but the 200K less in employment is dwarfed by the number of new opportunities.
The imbalance in the skills needed vs the number available with those skills has been brewing for decades and there is an argument that it has arificially depressed wage levels in a number of areas.
As for inflation: maybe yes, and probably even but it’s not a certainty.
With increased wages could come increased costs but also increased spending & therefore increased profits as well as increased tax receipts.
If it comes to pass then the worst-affected will be those at the proverbial bottom of the pile, those with zero or few skills and those unwilling or unable to work but the rest should see varying degrees of improvement in their standard of living.
Will this lead to a rebalancing of the labour market and of incomes & standards of living?
Only time will tell for sure.
