Keep Britain Working Review must ease emergency in the labour market

Responding to the Keep Britain Working Review, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) Chief Executive Neil Carberry said:

“A new partnership between business and the public sector to tackle ill health that prevents work is the right approach. Our forecasts shows that the cost to the economy of failing to tackle workforce challenges of all forms could add up to £39bn every year. If we can unlock even just a portion of that, we’ll see better jobs, better pay and an improving economy and fiscal picture.

“The report acknowledges that economic inactivity cannot be left to government alone. But since the election last year businesses have too often been talked at by government rather than worked with. Today is a welcome change of tone. We hope it will be followed by more practical business engagement in the weeks to come.”

Neil Carberry added:

“To keep Britain working, we must tackle NHS waiting lists. To achieve this, the government must prioritise value not ideology in how it staffs NHS hospitals. Aiming to end agency use is pushing up costs and reducing service quality. In the spirit of the Keep Britain Working Review, we must encourage skilled professionals to keep working for the NHS, in whatever way they choose and can manage, to treat patients faster and get patients back into the workforce and more productive. It’s time to talk about how we make this happen.”

Notes to editors

1.     In REC’s Overcoming Shortages report, REC shows exactly how much damage could be done if we don’t step up. With a 10% surge in demand for staff across the economy, and the labour market restricted by shortages, we could see a 1.2% fall in expected GDP and productivity by 2027 – costing the economy anywhere between £30 billion and £39 billion every year. This figure is just short of the entire current defence budget, or two whole Elizabeth Lines. The research in this report was carried out by CBI Economics.