Small businesses want to turn the page after a torrid 18 months. Lockdown has been a huge personal and financial burden for so many. We want nothing more than to rebuild and recover.
However, the recovery is far from secured – and a strong recovery even less so. We would caution against reading too much into vacancy statistics. There is so much churn, the scramble by some firms to hire staff may be a short-term consequence of unlocking, and some of the pain that was postponed is still to come.