12% UK firms with 10 or more staff saw supply chain disruption in Jan

12 Mar '23

2 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

Half of trading businesses in the United Kingdom reported they were able to get the materials, goods or services they needed from within the country in January this year without encountering any supply issues, according to a survey by the UK Office of National Statistics (ONS). Twelve per cent of businesses with 10 or more employees experienced global supply chain disruption.

The 12 per cent figure was down 3 percentage points from December last year. The most commonly reported reason for this disruption was a shortage of materials (35 per cent).

A further 11 per cent reported that they were able to get the materials, goods or services they needed but had to change suppliers or find alternative solutions to do so, with both percentages broadly stable when compared with December last year, the voluntary fortnightly business survey (BICS) found.

For March this year, seven in 10 of the businesses reported some form of concern, broadly stable with the proportion for February 2023 (72 per cent). The top two concerns reported by businesses for March 2023 continued to be energy prices (19 per cent) and inflation of goods and services prices (15 per cent), ONS said in a release.

Thirteen per cent of the businesses reported their employees' hourly wages had increased in January this year compared with December last year; this was 24 per cent for businesses with 10 or more employees.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)

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