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