Close to Earl’s Court tube station in London, a central and once super touristy area, for years there has been a restaurant with the sign “Byron”, a chain of burgers and fries but high-end. He lowered the shutter during the first Covid quarantine in the spring of last year. And it has never reopened. In its place, however, another chain has opened a few months ago, Thunderbird Fried Chicken, KFC-style fried chicken.
If Byron has closed due to lack of customers, blocked at home by the pandemic, the new tenant has the opposite problem: the customers would also be there, but there is no staff. On the window stands a notice: «Staff Wanted», employees wanted.
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Thunderbird, an unlikely name for a fast-food restaurant, is just one of the hundreds of signs you see around. On the streets of London there is an explosion of notices on the windows of shops, restaurants, pizzerias, pubs: everyone is desperately looking for workers. In its small way, the Byron-Thunderbird insignia relay embodies the UK dilemma. Covid has forced many restaurants and shops to close, but as the pandemic clouds dissolve, a far worse disturbance looms on the horizon: the long-term and permanent effects of Brexit.
Macroeconomic schizophrenia
Great Britain in the summer of 2021, the one inaugurated by the premier Boris Johnson with Freedom Day, the “free everyone” from Covid, is in the midst of a macroeconomic schizophrenia: there is an extreme need for workers, but unemployment is at its peak. We need manpower, there is a shortage of people who do manual and humble jobs. In July, the unemployed reached 4.8%, a percentage for which Italy would uncork champagne, but for the United Kingdom, which was in full employment before Covid, it is a tragedy. Still in July, however, the number of job vacancies, i.e. of open job positions, has risen to the record figure of one million:the hunger for workers has never been higher. The search for permanent hires rose by 43%, that of seasonal workers by as much as 53%.
On the one hand, there is no employment, but on the other, workers are sought. Many companies, even well-known brands, risk closure: the website of Brompton, the famous house of folding bikes, flaunts on its home page free home delivery of any bike: a good move to increase direct online sales. Too bad, however, that there is nothing to buy: last night, on the site, all the models were “Out of stock”, not available. Those who build them are missing.