Businesses can’t keep waiting for political stability
We’ve created a hidden economy of underemployment. Thousands of highly skilled, self-employed professionals don’t appear in the unemployment figures because, technically, they have work. But many are quietly living off savings while they wait for businesses to regain the confidence to make decisions, says Aceil Haddad
I was so annoyed watching the political drama unfold last week. Not because I’m particularly wedded to Keir Starmer, but because every time Westminster descends into uncertainty, businesses retreat into themselves.
Decisions get delayed, recruitment gets paused, investment gets pushed back to another quarter and thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on businesses making decisions find themselves waiting yet again.
I work as a communications consultant, I work for myself and have done for nearly nearly a decade. Summer is always a little quieter, but the paralysis by politics stings greatest.
For thousands of consultants across London, it isn’t simply a seasonal slowdown; it’s another summer of wondering if clients will finally press go on projects they’ve been talking about for months.
On paper we’re all still working. LinkedIn would certainly have you believe that. But scratch beneath the surface and you’ll find an awful lot of highly experienced people living off savings, taking the odd few days here and there, hoping September brings the confidence that never quite seems to arrive.
I know this because not a week goes by without one of these conversations.
Only a few days ago I commented on a LinkedIn post advertising a senior consultancy role paying between £160 and £280 a day. Ten years ago that would have been laughed at. Today, it barely raises an eyebrow because there are so many experienced people chasing so little work. But that’s not because standards have fallen. It’s because the market has. I commented to this effect, within the day I had a dozen of people DM me saying they thought it was just them and updating me on their corporate ghosting…
I have friends who are at the very top of their professions. Brilliant operators. The sort of people companies would have fought over a few years ago. They were made redundant and, like so many others, set themselves up as consultants because there wasn’t much alternative. They’ll tell you they’re busy because that’s what consultants do. We all like to think the next project is around the corner. The reality is many of them haven’t worked consistently for years – which they’ve told me over the second glass of wine.
A hidden problem
And that’s the bit nobody is really talking about. We’ve created a hidden economy of underemployment. Thousands of highly skilled, self-employed professionals don’t appear in the unemployment figures because, technically, they have work. They invoice occasionally, they keep their businesses alive and, on LinkedIn, they look busy. But many are quietly living off savings while they wait for businesses to regain the confidence to make decisions.
That’s a hidden problem in the economy.
The irony is that, wherever you look, businesses will tell you they need communications support, strategy support, digital support, HR support, legal support. The work exists. The need certainly exists. What doesn’t exist is the confidence to sign the contract.
We are waiting: waiting for interest rates; waiting for the Spending Review; waiting to see what happens with tax; waiting for the next piece of political drama to settle down; waiting for somebody else to make the first move.
The problem is that when everyone waits, nothing moves.
We often talk about growth as though it’s something governments need to do. I don’t subscribe to that, but I do believe governments create the conditions for growth.
Businesses have spent the best part of a decade adapting to the next crisis before they’ve recovered from the last one
Growth itself happens when a business owner decides to recruit someone, signs a lease on another office, buys a new coffee machine, hires a consultant or invests in a new product. Those decisions happen thousands of times a day when people feel optimistic about the future. They don’t happen when the prevailing mood is uncertainty.
This isn’t really about Starmer. It wouldn’t have been about Rishi Sunak either. It’s about the cumulative effect of years of political and economic instability. Brexit. Covid. Inflation. Interest rates. Elections. Leadership speculation. Policy changes.
Businesses have spent the best part of a decade adapting to the next crisis before they’ve recovered from the last one.
Eventually, caution stops being a sensible response and becomes the culture.
That’s where we are now.
Business isn’t crying out for another announcement or another strategy document. It isn’t asking for politicians to promise they’ll deliver the highest growth in the G7. It simply wants to know the rules won’t change again in six months’ time.
We are desperate for consistency.
And until we start treating certainty as an economic policy in its own right, I suspect thousands more consultants will spend another summer looking far busier than they really are.
Aceil Haddad is the founder of Matt PR