Sophie Williams has a problem: she cannot find the 45 staff needed to ramp up production at her steel coatings business in Telford in Britain’s industrial heartland.
This is not the situation in which Williams, the general manager of the 160-year-old Corbetts The Galvanizers, expected to find herself. A year ago, concerns were more about 1980s-style unemployment caused by the pandemic tearing through the West Midlands and other parts of Britain. Now, said Williams, 36: “The biggest challenge is people.”
It is a complaint repeated across the country — from a shortage of workers for manufacturers, to lorry drivers to waiting staff at restaurants. And it is a paradox that has left bosses and economists confounded: instead of lengthening dole queues, job boards are now