We’re not short of jobs, we’re short of workers

I don’t often find myself agreeing with supermarket bosses, but Tesco’s Ashwin Prasad has got this one right. Britain is drifting into a worklessness crisis and far too many people are still pretending it isn’t happening.

I’ve spent my life employing people, from apprentices to engineers and office staff, and I can tell you the problem today isn’t a shortage of jobs. It’s a shortage of people willing, or in many cases able, to do them. Employers across the country are advertising constantly and still struggling to recruit. At WeFix London we have roles available right now, yet finding reliable applicants is harder than it has ever been.

The narrative in public debate is that businesses aren’t creating opportunities. In reality, many businesses can’t fill the opportunities they already have.

An education system that forgot about work

A big part of the problem comes from education. For decades we’ve pushed young people towards university whether it suited them or not, because governments like graduate statistics and schools are judged on how many pupils they send into higher education. In the process we quietly devalued practical skills and trades, then acted surprised when the country ran short of plumbers, electricians, engineers and technicians, the very people who keep the economy functioning.

n the apprenticeship programmes I ran in my last business and we are growing again at WeFix London, teenagers learned discipline, responsibility and confidence alongside a wage. Today, too many leave education with qualifications but without resilience or any understanding of workplace expectations. That is a system failure rather than a personal one.

The pandemic changed attitudes to work

The pandemic accelerated the issue. The emergency support was necessary at the time, but it altered attitudes to work in ways we still haven’t properly addressed. A sizeable number of people discovered they could remain at home and still receive an income of some form, and once that mindset takes hold it doesn’t easily reverse.

Employers now see missed interviews, jobs accepted and quickly abandoned, and a reliability problem that barely existed a decade ago. We talk constantly about a cost-of-living crisis, yet businesses are increasingly dealing with a commitment crisis.

When not working nearly pays as much as working

Overlay that with a benefits system where, for some people, the financial gap between working and not working is simply too small once travel, childcare and effort are factored in. The welfare bill heading towards £400 billion is not just an economic concern but evidence that incentives are pointing the wrong way. Support should help people return to employment, not make long-term inactivity a viable alternative.

Employers are being discouraged from hiring

At the same time government policy piles cost and risk onto the very employers expected to solve the issue. Higher taxes, regulation and employment liability all land hardest on small and medium-sized businesses, the companies that historically create the most jobs.

Each new burden makes a business owner think twice before hiring, not out of greed but out of caution, and the result is a strange national cycle where the state pays more people not to work while making it harder for firms to employ them.

Work is about more than a payslip

Work has never just been about money. It provides structure, independence and purpose, and when large numbers fall out of employment communities weaken as well as the economy. You cannot repair that with another initiative or slogan. It requires restoring the expectation that work is the norm and rebuilding the routes that lead people into it.

That means properly backing apprenticeships and vocational education, ensuring employment always pays meaningfully more than inactivity, and removing barriers that stop smaller firms taking on staff. It also means being honest that university is not the right path for everyone and that trades and technical careers are not second-class options.

Ashwin Prasad is right to sound the alarm. Unless we change direction, Britain will not simply run short of workers. It will lose its working culture altogether.