Reeves shoots economy in foot AGAIN as Budget triggers jobs meltdown | Personal Finance | Finance

Or rather, who didn’t? Make something more expensive and people will have less of it. Which is a real problem when that ‘something’ is people’s livelihoods.

I don’t think Reeves understands the basic laws of supply and demand.

Hiring has fallen to the lowest level in four years, new figures show, as a direct consequence of her maiden Budget.

Lest we forget, that four-year spell covers the pandemic, energy shock, cost-of-living crisis, Liz Truss meltdown and Rishi Sunak no-show.

Companies kept employing staff throughout – only to give up after just one Labour Budget.

Reeves can’t pin this on the Tories. It’s all down to her decision to hike national employers’ national insurance (NI) contributions on October 30.

That will add £25billion to wage bills, while her decision to hike the minimum wage by an inflation-busting 6.7% will add billions more.

Angela Rayner’s employment rights bill, designed to curry favour with the unions, will add another £5billion.

No wonder businesses have stopped taking on new staff. It’s too expensive. And if they’re not up to the job, Rayner’s bill will make it even harder to get rid of them.

All of this could have been predicted by anyone with a GCSE in economics.

In November, the first month after the Budget, demand for staff in November fell at its sharpest rate since August 2020 when the pandemic was raging, according to the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) and accountants KPMG.

Hiring for permanent roles was particularly weak.

In a further blow, more Britons are hunting for work as employers make staff redundant to cut NI bills.

REC chief executive Neil Carberry said the figures “should be a surprise to no one” after a tough Budget for employers. There’s an obvious exception to that. Rachel Reeves.

Straight after the Budget, Deutsche Bank warned 100,000 jobs will go as a result. Others have put the figure at 125,000 or 140,000.

Last month, business leaders penned a letter to The Daily Telegraph accusing the chancellor’s of “milking” corporate Britain. The teat has already run dry.

Auditor BDO’s latest business trends report, also published today, shows confidence plunged to a two-year low in November.

Managing partner Paul Eagland said businesses have “only got so much money to spend on employment” and are trimming staff or blocking new hires.

The slide was happening before the Budget, but that didn’t deter Reeves. Now she’s made it even worse.

We’re earning less too, with pay growth at a 44-month low in October.

It’s yet another example of how everything falls to pieces in the chancellor’s hands. Her Budget sent tax, mortgages, inflation, interest rates and debt through the roof.

Now the jobs market has fallen through the floor.

Reeves told us her Budget would be “good for jobs and good for growth”. Instead, it’s sunk them both.

She’s also been a disaster for pensioners, farmers, small businesses, high streets and taxpayers. And the only person who will be surprised by that is Rachel Reeves herself.