The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) are
hopeful that the UK will avoid a double dip recession but believe that growth
will be lower than expected Unique Client Solutions understands.
The BCC has lowered its forecast for economic
growth from the 0.8% it had originally estimated to 0.6%. The leading business
group produces a quarterly economic report and in it they wrote that Britain
still faced, “serious challenges”, that the country’s debt levels were too high
and that unemployment was set to rise to almost 3 million by January 2013.
Unique Client Solutions was encouraged that
the BCC noted that the Olympics in July and August could show unusually high
growth figures in the summer. Simon Tomlinson, a manager at Unique Client Solutions said, “We’ve always believed that aside from hosting the Olympics
being a real honour, they would also bring a huge amount of money and work into
the UK .” Other encouraging news was that business investments and growth from
exports would help to prevent Britain from falling back into another recession,
which had been feared.
Mr. Tomlinson added, “One factor that is
exceptionally worrying is that unemployment appears to have no sign of abating.
The BCC predict that it will rise by 8.6% this year to almost 3 million and
that at the start of 2013 youth unemployment will be at 23%.” This
astronomically high figure is something that has been concerning Unique Client Solutions for some time. “Quite aside from the financial repercussions of young
people being out of work, psychologically it is a very sad way to begin your
working career and we believe that we’re going to see a huge group of young
individuals who are lacking in confidence as a result.”
The BCC, like many other business groups, are
urging the Chancellor to really focus on business, in particular smaller firms,
and must do everything they can to help them “squeeze every last drop of
growth” from the economy. The director general of the BCC, John Longworth said,
“Businesses up and down the country are doing their utmost to find new markets
and grow their firms, despite the difficult economic challenges they face. Only
the private sector will drive recovery and help deliver public services, like
education, healthcare and pensions.”
Unique Client Solutions, a customer acquisitions
company based in Sheffield believes that the government must take the advice of
the experts in the next budget. Mr. Tomlinson concludes, “Times are very tough
for businesses, we’ve been fortunate that we’ve seen some fantastic growth over
the last 2 years but we recognise that other businesses haven’t been so
fortunate. The BCC know what they’re talking about, the government must listen
before it’s too late.”
