A shortage of workers is driving up wages: are we entering a new economic era?

J amie Rogers is a former semi-finalist in the BBC’s Masterchef: The Professionals, and the founder of an award-winning restaurant called Twenty Seven, located in the south Devon town of Kingsbridge. As it reopened for business after the recent lockdown, a handful of staff handed in their notice. As he told me last week, he then began to explore what was happening in his part of the economy, and was confronted with huge changes: “Jobs that were worth £10 an hour last year are suddenly paying double that.”

Brexit is part of the story. “A lot of international people have gone home – a lot of people are telling me that,” he said. So too is a shift among British-born workers. “I bumped into someone the other day who was working in Tesco. He used to be a head chef. He said, ‘I’m happy where I am now.’ He’s seen that he doesn’t have to work a 60- or 70-hour week, and he’s still probably making the same money.”

Rogers has now taken a bold approach to pulling in managerial staff, offering a £1,000 bonus if successful applicants can guarantee they will stick with him through the summer. He has also put up his hourly rates for middle-ranking jobs. The worst seems to be over, although he is still looking for a restaurant manager.

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