Business group Logistics UK is warning the government to do more to stimulate economic activity and restore consumer confidence after the COVID-19 pandemic, after the group’s own research indicated that the nation’s businesses are stagnating, after two months’ of cautious re-opening.
As David Wells, the group’s Chief Executive explained, consumer caution and an unclear path back to ‘business as normal’ is hindering companies in all sectors from opening up completely, and government needs to step in decisively to avoid massive redundancies and further damage to the long term prospects of UK PLC.
He said, “Logistics is a perfect barometer of economic activity because it is at the heart of every industry in the country, delivering raw materials and finished items to factories, offices, hospitals, schools, shops and homes.
“Through some of the critical services we supply to industry, and our ongoing research, we have access to tens of thousands of data points on levels of activity in the economy every day, and what the numbers tell us is increasingly worrying.
“While the rate of growth was encouraging as the country came out of lockdown, driven by the reopening of some sectors of the economy, that pace of expansion has now slowed to a crawl.
“While our larger operators are holding steady, SMEs across the sector are finding things increasingly tough, with less subcontracted work, squeezed rates and fewer jobs of their own to sustain the recovery.
“This is bad news for the economy, for employees and for the longer-term future prosperity of our nation and does not tally with the expected ‘bounce back’ or ‘recovery’ we have been told is under way.”