Increased productivity will only be achieved when employees are treated better

Editorial: If the UK economy is to make a sustained recovery, the business community will need to find ways of using staff more effectively

Supermarkets have been affected by the recent ‘pingdemic’ (AFP/Getty)

The supermarkets are struggling to keep their shelves stocked, as the Covid-19 test and trace app has pushed more than 600,000 people to self-isolate. But even before this latest blow, employers were struggling to find staff, particularly in hospitality.

Last week, new evidence emerged that staff shortages were climbing in other sectors, including finance and management services. Indeed, the world’s (and the UK’s) largest job-search website reported a surge in demand for staff in London from employers such as EY, Citigroup, PwC and KPMG. Vacancies are now running higher than they were in February 2020, before the pandemic struck.

In one sense, this is welcome. A year ago, the Office for Budget Responsibility published its Fiscal Sustainability Report, which set out three possible scenarios for how the economy might develop over the next five years. Its central scenario saw unemployment rising to nearly 12 per cent by the end of last year, and its most pessimistic scenario to 13 per cent by the end of March this year.