It’s time to address the anti-work culture that has gripped our post-pandemic economy
Wage growth is accelerating. Employers are paying more to fill vacancies and retain staff. And perhaps, just perhaps, inflation might just fall far enough to deliver real growth in living standards.
There is a catch to the latest data on the UK’s tight labour market, however. Some employers are finding that there are limits to the ability of higher wages to elicit greater effort on the part of workers; some would prefer to put in fewer hours instead.
This could be bad news for the Bank of England, struggling valiantly to bring down inflation, and for the UK’s hopes of addressing its critical labour shortages.
Ever since the pandemic, people have been quitting the labour market in vast numbers. Many took early retirement, leaving the rat race behind. That roughly half have found themselves living in relative poverty rather than enjoying the life of yoga classes and cruises they had hoped for does not seem to have lured them back.