Expert: Britain's Job Vacancy Crisis could last 3-5 Years

As Britain's economy grapples with the impact of a record number of job vacancies, a labor market expert has warned that the problem may continue for another three to five years.

The impact of Britain's departure from the European Union, and of the COVID-19 pandemic, have sparked one of the biggest worker shortages in years, Donald Houston, a professor from the University of Portsmouth, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview. Data released on Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed the number of job vacancies rose to a new high of 1.3 million from March to May 2022. This is over half a million more than before the pandemic.

The record for job vacancies has been broken several times since the second half of last year. In the first quarter of 2022, for the first time since records began, there were fewer unemployed people than job vacancies across Britain.

"It's important to say that what's happening is not that the economy is suddenly booming, and that we've got a huge growth in labor demand. This is driven entirely by a reduction in the number of people in the workforce," Houston said.

British employers in many industrial sectors are reporting serious difficulties recruiting enough workers, he said. This has led to difficulties including chaos at airports, and massive flight cancellations during the jubilee holiday.

"What's really been going on is a combination of the pandemic made slightly worse by Brexit," said Houston, a professor of economic geography at the university's faculty of science and health.

He said Britain's shortage of workers became evident as the country emerged from lockdown.

"Some staff moved into early retirement because they'd had enough of working during...