A prominent British recruitment executive on Tuesday called for a five-point, pro-jobs strategy in the United Kingdom’s Autumn Budget, warning that the country is sliding toward a jobs recession — a set of concerns that intersects with debates in Washington over taxes, labour rules and the impact of artificial intelligence on entry-level work.
Lee Biggins, chief executive and founder of job board CV‑Library, wrote in a Daily Mail opinion piece that the U.K. unemployment rate had climbed to 4.7%, the highest in four years, and that the number of job vacancies had fallen for 37 consecutive quarters. He urged the Chancellor to deliver a November budget designed to restore business confidence and stimulate private‑sector hiring.
Biggins said the private sector — which he described as the engine room of growth — was “spluttering,” with businesses cutting back on investment and hiring. He said there was now an average of 2.3 unemployed people for every vacancy, the highest level since the COVID‑19 pandemic, and pointed to nearly a million young people not in employment, education or training as an acute risk to future growth.
In the op‑ed, Biggins attributed part of the weak hiring picture to higher costs for employers, citing an employer National Insurance levy that he described as “punitive,” and warned that a proposed Employment Rights Bill could raise the perceived risk and cost of recruitment for firms. He also highlighted early signs that artificial intelligence was being used by some large employers to reduce graduate intake and replace entry‑level roles.
Biggins set out five principles he said should guide the Autumn Budget: reduce the tax burden on businesses; cut unnecessary hiring and compliance red tape; give targeted tax relief and hiring incentives to reward employers that create new, productive jobs; create an Employment Rights framework that balances worker protections with hiring incentives; and incentivise private investment in job‑rich sectors such as construction and hospitality.
Those policy themes — employer costs, regulatory balance, targeted incentives and the labour market effects of AI — are mirrored in ongoing policy discussions in the United States, where lawmakers, administration officials and private‑sector leaders are debating how to foster job creation while managing technological disruption and fiscal priorities.
In Washington, debates have focused on the design and distributional impact of payroll taxes, the role of tax incentives in spurring investment, and federal supports for worker retraining as automation and artificial intelligence change the composition of demand for labour. U.S. policymakers are also weighing how to balance worker protections with incentives for small and medium‑sized businesses to hire in the face of rising compliance costs.
Economists and business groups on both sides of the Atlantic often point to private‑sector hiring and business investment as essential for sustained growth. Biggins argued in his piece that more people in work would boost tax receipts and productivity and reduce welfare spending — outcomes commonly cited in U.S. fiscal policy discussions when lawmakers consider incentives aimed at increasing labour force participation.
The U.K. recruitment chief’s recommendations come ahead of the November budget and against a backdrop of rising welfare costs and subdued business confidence. He urged targeted measures aimed at small and high‑growth firms, and a predictable, growth‑related tax framework to encourage private investment.
Analysts caution that cross‑country comparisons have limits: labour markets, tax systems and social safety nets differ materially between the U.K. and the U.S., and policy tools that appeal in one setting may have different effects elsewhere. Still, the themes raised in the op‑ed — how to design employer taxation, how to strike a balance between worker protections and hiring incentives, and how to address AI’s disruption of entry‑level roles — are likely to remain central to political debate in both countries as governments wrestle with persistently weak hiring and the longer‑term effects of technology on the workforce.
The Daily Mail published the op‑ed on Sept. 16, 2025. Biggins is the chief executive of CV‑Library, one of Britain’s job board platforms. The piece called on the U.K. government to prioritise immediate, targeted measures to stimulate job creation and restore business confidence ahead of the autumn fiscal package.