“Vacancies exceeding pre-Covid levels is a further sign of demand returning and employers creating jobs.
“Yet businesses’ ability to meet this demand, and support the recovery, is being challenged by staff shortages. As COVID cases rise, firms are facing the double difficulty of hiring workers and more employees self-isolating.
“Short-term, aligning planned changes to self-isolation to the reopening and including a test and release mechanism will help. To ease acute shortages the government should also immediately update its shortage occupation lists to include jobs ranging from butchers and bricklayers to welders.
“Longer term, firms must continue to strengthen inclusion while investing in skills and automation. And government can help by ensuring that the qualifications it funds include those in short supply.”