Tag Archives: labour shortages

Your bacon sarnie is at risk…

By Lin Macmillan | Mon 4th October 2021 - 2:12 pm

An item on Radio 4’s Broadcasting House yesterday morning put into sharp focus the labour crisis that the UK is currently experiencing. Thousands of piglets may have to be culled because there are not enough workers to process them; vegetables are going to rot in the fields because there insufficient pickers to harvest them (one Gloucestershire farmer has been working with his local Job Centre since July but has not managed to recruit a single person); and, horrors of horrors, a toy company says it may not be able to get its Harry Potter range into Aldi in time for Christmas because of labour shortages at ports and in the haulage industry.

Thinking about this, I came up with a few radical solutions. I don’t expect them to be popular, but then I will use one of the phrases that has been so overused in the last 18 months – extraordinary times call for extraordinary solutions.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bacon sandwich | 47 Comments

The impact of staff shortages on the UK economy

By Michal Siewniak | Mon 4th October 2021 - 8:57 am

I like my Sunday routine. I am not a coffee drinker, however I enjoy my morning walk to Welwyn Garden City Town Centre and getting my favourite vanilla latte.

In the last couple of weeks, I have noticed that one of my local coffee shops is opening later than usual. I thought that it might be a good idea to ask what causes this late opening. I was told that unfortunately; they are short staffed. This particular outlet recruited two new individuals, however one of them, I was told, resigned very quickly.