Staff shortages are among one of the main concerns for medium sized businesses in the North East and the issue could be around for some time to come, a business advisory group says.
Research from audit and tax specialist RSM suggests firms are holding on to employees longer, even when there is less work, and choosing to reduce hours rather than lay them off and have to recruit later as the labour market remains tight. And North East businesses gathered at RSM's Newcastle base this week for a roundtable discussion following the research reported that wage growth and hiring of the right skills could be constraining growth.
Tom Pugh, RSM economist, told BusinessLive the trend was being driven my a unique set of circumstances after the pandemic. He said: "Fundamentally there just aren't enough people. The UK is down something like 300,000 fewer people working now than there were before the pandemic. Some of that is because people are saying they're off sick and I'm sure there's also a little bit of early retirement in there, but certainly most of it seems to be people inactive because they're sick.
