Britain's Labor Shortage Is Helping Drive Its Inflation Problem

[Celerity]

Many of Britain’s employers, faced with a labor shortage, are raising wages to attract workers. That’s sowing the seeds of faster inflation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/business/britain-inflation-labor-shortage.html

https://archive.ph/5m7nt



For two and a half years, the upstairs room at Luc’s Brasserie, a French restaurant in the City of London, has sat idle, closed off through the ups and downs of the pandemic. Next month, it will finally reopen with freshly painted walls, new décor and a calendar filling up with reservations. But something crucial is missing: the staff.

Darrin Jacobs, the owner of Luc’s, needs to hire three more people to serve the diners, and he has been looking for months. Four or five times a day he checks jobs websites, trying to get to the best candidates quickly. But he’s struggling to compete in Britain’s red-hot labor market. When faced with an unexpected opening or sudden busyness, “you used to be able to react overnight and just go out there and hire someone — it was instant,” Mr. Jacobs said. “We’ve been looking since June to get staff for September, and we still haven’t got it.”


Darrin Jacobs at Luc’s Brasserie: “We’ve been looking since June to get staff for September.”

This inability to find people to hire has spread across the British economy, in virtually all industries, and the solution chosen by many employers — higher pay — is embedding inflationary pressures deeper into an economy where prices are soaring. Last week, Britons learned that the annual rate of inflation reached 10.1 percent in July, the fastest pace since 1982, as energy prices rose and businesses passed higher costs — for supplies but also labor — onto their customers.

In some ways it’s a great time to be a worker in the hospitality business. Wages have jumped, and experienced staff can afford to be extremely picky about where they work. But Mr. Jacobs, who pays his wait staff minimum wage (9.50 pounds, or $11.35, an hour for people over 23) plus a 13 percent service charge, amounting to about £14.75 an hour, said he wouldn’t meet some of the top salary demands. His profit margins have been eaten up by higher costs for food and energy.

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[scarletlib]

1. How are we loving that Brexit now?

[tanyev]

2. 'Twas the Brexiest Brexit ever Brexited!

*smh*

[Johnny2X2X]

3. Thanks Biden

His reckless spending is causing inflation globally!

Inflation is easing, prices actually were static between June and July, 0.0%. But Dems need to do a better job of highlighting how inflation is a global issue every government is navigating. Biden hasn't caused global inflation, he's simply trying to steer the US economy through it and he's doing an excellent job so far.

[uponit7771]

4. K&R, similar is happening in US seeing nearly a net million working age Americans died or ...

... retired and not all the extra deaths during the height of covid were reported by all states especially red states like Florida and Texas.