Employers ‘secretly’ want staff back in the office, says CBI director-general
THE head of Britain’s biggest business group has said most bosses “secretly” want all staff to return to the office after the surge in home working caused by the pandemic.
Tony Danker, director-general of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), which represents about 190,000 companies, said the “whole world of work” had “gone crazy” since lockdowns forced many people to work from home.
Speaking on the BBC podcast Political Thinking with Nick Robinson, Mr Danker said he had “no idea” where working patterns were “going to land”.
He said: “You ask most bosses, everybody secretly wants everyone to come back into the office,” he said. “I just don’t think that’s going to happen overnight. I think we are all coping with this ... but we’re going to be talking about this for a few years.”
Mr Danker’s comments come amid growing evidence that bosses are turning their backs on home-working and hauling more staff back to the office.
Job adverts for fully remote roles declined for the seventh straight month in November, according to data from Linkedin, and now represent just one in 10 listings on the recruitment platform, down from a peak of 16pc.
Josh Graff, Linkedin’s managing director for Europe, said: “The challenging economic conditions are leading to more than a slowdown in hiring – they are also prompting employers to cut down on post-pandemic flexible work options.”
Meanwhile, Jeremy Hunt acknowledged the challenges Britain faces with its workforce in a speech yesterday. The Chancellor told people who left work during the pandemic and have not returned that “Britain needs you”. He said: “If companies can’t employ the staff they need, they can’t grow.”
There are 3.6m people aged 50-64 who are classed as economically inactive, according to the Office for National Statistics, meaning they are neither in work nor looking for it. Of those, 500,000 say they want to get a job but cannot do so for reasons such as long-term health problems.