You would be forgiven for forgetting we are currently amid one of the best runs of economic growth in living memory with all the negative news about supply chain snarl ups, worker shortages and soaring inflation flying around.
A slew of data published this week, alongside a raft of announcements from supermarket, retail and food bosses, show the effects of constrained labour and raw materials supply are emerging in the form of a lack of milkshakes, chicken bites and fewer punnets of strawberries.
Perhaps the most alarming of these warnings came from the chief of The Entertainer: “The range of toys available will shrink because we just won’t have the variety, as there will be so many items which are out of stock.”
All very doom and gloom.
It is very much a workers’ market at the moment – see Waitrose offering lorry drivers more than back office executives – but how long this will last is a pertinent question for the long term trajectory of the British economy.
