Labour struggles | Third of UK firms short-staffed every week amid recruitment & absence struggles

A third of UK businesses are finding themselves short-staffed at least once a week, new research has revealed.

Indeed Flex, the online marketplace for flexible and temporary work, surveyed HR teams and managers responsible for organising staff rotas, and found that a third of UK businesses (34%) have a gap in their rota at least once a week because they have insufficient staff available to work. An additional fifth (23%) of businesses are under-staffed at least once a month.

Among companies finding themselves short-staffed, half (49%) say one of the main problems is employees being off work sick. A third (34%) point to problems recruiting enough people to fill the gaps, while 31% have staff unwilling to work certain days or hours, while a quarter (28%) attribute the problem to having staff unwilling to work overtime.

Overall, a quarter of businesses (24%) have found it hard to fill vacancies this year, while only 13% say it has been easy to recruit.