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The government has published an analysis of UK businesses’ ability to fill job vacancies across different industries. Along with this, it also provides a list of reasons for recruitment challenges. The data covers Summer 2021, primarily after COVID-19 measures were eased.

Hospitality firms are more than twice as likely as others to be going through challenges. Normally, hospitality businesses would expect to be able to fill job vacancies during this time of year. Between 23 August and 5 September 2021 however, 30% of hospitality businesses said that vacancies were harder to fill than normal. In comparison, only 13% across all sectors (up from 9% in early August) said the same as well.

These challenges are more common for larger businesses. Aside from firms with less than 10 employees, 41% of firms across all industries struggled to fill roles in late August too. This is up from 32% earlier in the month.

These difficulties also coincide with a busy time for recruitment. The latest labour market data suggested hospitality and many other industries were posting record numbers of vacancies in June to August 2021. Aside from hospitality (30%), the water (27%) and health (23%) sectors also faced problems.

See: Business and industry challenges in filling vacancies – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)