𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Rachel Reeves has been dealt a hammer blow as her inflation-busting minimum wage increases and sweeping employer NI contributions have sparked the largest hiring slump in the G7. Figures released by the recruitment platform Indeed show that new job advertisements in the UK have dropped by 12.3% since the Chancellor delivered her first Budget in late October last year.

The country’s severely weakened job market means the UK has suffered the largest decline by a significant margin among G7 countries, although comparable figures for Japan were unavailable. Meanwhile, during the same timeframe, vacancies dropped by 5.4% in Germany, 4.4% in France, 3.2% in the US, 1.9% in Italy and 9.9% in Canada. The euro area recorded a 4.5% fall in new hiring.

The figures lay bare just how exceptional the challenges have become for UK jobseekers. Recruiters have dubbed the prolonged slump in vacancies a “hiring recession”.

Hospitality and retail have been hit hardest, with pubs, restaurants and shops shedding staff.

Jack Kennedy, a senior economist at Indeed, said Brits have been hit with a fatal “triple whammy” which have weakened the UK’s job market so much more than those of other G7 countries.

Mr Kennedy said: “There are really three policy drivers to that. The employer National Insurance contribution increase was obviously pretty consequential. We’ve had fairly large minimum wage increases and the Employment Rights Act. It’s a triple whammy that’s been contributing to that caution.”

Business chiefs cautioned before Ms Reeves’s first Budget that plans to raise employers’ National Insurance contributions would amount to a “jobs tax” and deter firms from hiring.

In her first Budget Reeves unleashed a £25billion tax raid on jobs by hiking employers’ national insurance contributions, which came into force in April.

This is despite Labour’s manifesto pledge to avoid increases to income tax, national insurance contributions and VAT.

In November, Ms Reeves insisted taxes have been kept at “an absolute minimum on ordinary working people.” Official HMRC figures published in June show a staggering 276,000 jobs have gone since the Budget in October.