Hello and welcome to the programme. Now, we used to assume, because it was true, that unemployment was the great labour market problem.

Workers desperate for jobs, no jobs to go to. Seeing off that threat was really one of the main tasks of economic policy.

Well, things are very different now. There are 1.3 million job vacancies in the UK, just more indeed than there are people who are

unemployed. There are hundreds of thousands, more vacancies than before the pandemic.

The data is telling us that companies are struggling to find the staff. More than the staff

are struggling to find some kind of work. And not just the data. This is one of

those occasions that the anecdotal evidence is entirely congruent with what the statistics say.

Something has gone to rise since the pandemic and while three quarters of working age adults are

working, it has been a surge in people leaving the labour market, choosing or unable to look for a job.

If economic growth is the goal, and one thing on which the main political parties agree,

it would be helpful to sort out the labour market bottlenecks.

And that's what we shall talk about today.

And let us start with two people in areas feeling labour shortages rather acutely. Jane Townsend is the chief

executive of the Home Care Association. Now that represents companies that arrange carers to go into

people's homes, people who may be elderly sick or vulnerable. And Will Beckett, founder, chief

executive of Hawksmoor. It's a chain of steak restaurants in the UK and one in New York as well, Will.

Will, just tell us about your steak restaurant chain and what the staff situation is.

So we've got nine restaurants in the UK.

I imagine we employ something like 900 people here.

900 people for nine restaurants? 100 people are a restaurant. 900 people for nine restaurants.

100 people are restaurant?

They're quite big restaurants.

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