As we all continue to try and return to a more normal way of life following the challenges of the last few years, it has been well reported through the media on how the public’s approach to many aspects of day-to-day life has been changing. One particular area that businesses continue to face are challenges around recruitment.
It was recently reported by the British Chamber of Commerce (BCC) that recruitment challenges are at record levels and that three out of four companies, around 76%, are struggling to hire staff. Of the 5,700 businesses which took part in a recent survey, the construction sector, followed by production and manufacturing were reported to be facing the biggest challenges. There are currently around 1.3million unfilled jobs in the UK economy and fewer people in the workforce than before the pandemic.
These shortfalls in employment are affecting regular routine services that the majority of our customers benefit from. This is having a knock-on effect on timescales for carrying out routine services with some reporting delays beyond much of what we were all previously used to.
Like most businesses, we are not immune from challenges around recruitment along with many of our customers’ contractors who we deploy on their behalf. Our own dedicated and hardworking staff continue to navigate through this difficult period and with the recent changes to our factoring teams, moving into a more localised and focused approach, our staff remain on hand to help manage our customers’ needs and expectations. We are very proud of our people and how well they continue to support our customers during these more difficult and challenging times.
While the BCC believe that the recruitment challenges show no sign of abating in the short term, our aim is to continue to support our customers, through strong proactive and positive interactions, working together to achieve the collective aims and objectives.
We wish to also thank our customers for their ongoing support and understanding during these challenging times.
