The UK jobs market, which was already seriously impacted by Reeves’s Budget, is now taking even another catastrophic blow.

Jack, who chose not to use his given name, is by no means the only person in this situation. Britain is currently experiencing the biggest hiring slump since the pandemic’s peak, and Donald Trump’s trade war is set to make it far worse.

Since the beginning of the year, Jack’s job search has been plagued by rejection after rejection. His college degree hasn’t given him much of an advantage. Rather, the 25-year-old has worked manual tasks for periods of time under zero-hour contracts and temporary employment. He aspires to a secure position in insurance.

He States: “The worst bit about job hunting is the rejection. When you go deep into a process, clearing multiple stages and potentially thousands of other applicants, you start to imagine what your life will be like if you get the job. This makes the rejection, typically with no feedback, feel more akin to a break-up.”

A severe economic downturn can leave an adverse effect on a young person’s employment chances, as shown by the 2008 financial crisis, COVID, and the energy chaos in Ukraine. There is concern about another round of youth unemployment if Trump’s trade war leads to a major economic crisis.

It is crucial that those young people receive the assistance, encouragement, and persuasion they need to pursue careers. It’s crucial to create an economic climate with plenty of jobs, Reed continues.

As companies prepared for another inflation-busting salary increase and a £25 billion tax hike from Rachel Reeves’s National Insurance reforms, job advertising on Reed’s website were already 23 percent fewer in March than they were a year earlier.

James Reed, the CEO of his own recruitment company, Reed, says, “I’m really concerned.”

“You’ve got a million young people who we need to get into work. If you have periods of worklessness early on in your working life, it can affect your earnings and your career for your whole life in a bad way.”

Although Britain was excluded from the worst of Trump’s tariffs, the impact is still severe because all US exports are subject to levies of 10%, which increase to 25% for steel, aluminium, and automobiles.

According to recruiter ManpowerGroup’s Anna Spaul, the blow is already having an adverse effect on employer hiring plans.

She said: “Shocks, like those caused by the sweeping tariffs of this week, are bad for economies. We usually see the impact in payrolls manifest with a lag.

“However in this instance, as many of the impacted workforces were already facing challenges from the National Insurance and minimum wage increase this month, we’re seeing broader scale cutbacks than previously anticipated. The worst-impacted sectors are in the consumer and manufacturing industries.”

In recent weeks, economists updated their predictions, with JP Morgan cautioning that the likelihood of a worldwide recession has increased from 45 percent to 60 percent.

Sir Keir Starmer’s election commitment to increase Britain’s employment and lower the rising number of young people not in education, work, or training (Neets) from its highest level since 2013 is probably going to take a serious hit.

Economic Inactivity Rates in the North (Aged 16-64)

According to KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, the number of job seekers increased at the quickest rate since December 2020 in March, which has already caused concerns about a recession to spread throughout the UK labour market.

Trump’s trade war will simply worsen an already unstable job market.

Paul Swinney of the think tank Centre for Cities cautions that the immediate impact of Trump’s tariffs on UK jobs is most pronounced in regions with already high levels of economic inactivity and limited employment opportunities.

It shows how places that are already struggling are most affected when shocks occur.

“Those places that send more goods to America tend to have more manufacturing-based economies, and they’re ones that haven’t adapted so well to the changes in the global economy in the last 30, 40, 50 years,” Swinney says.

“They’ve got more jobs in manufacturing, which tends to be a reflection of how they haven’t been able to shift their economy towards a service-based economy.”

Thus, locations like as London, Cambridge, and Reading are comparatively protected from the direct effects. In contrast, cities like Hull, Blackpool, and Coventry are much more vulnerable.

The United States accounts for more than a fifth of Coventry’s exports, which is the largest percentage in the United Kingdom. After Trump’s tariffs went into force, Jaguar Land Rover, which has its headquarters in the West Midlands, promptly suspended shipments to the United States.

UK Cities Most Exposed to Trump’s Tariffs

In Coventry, 22.4 percent of working-age individuals are classified as economically dormant, which means they are neither employed nor looking for employment. This exceeds the 21.2 percent national average. Among locations that are directly subject to the tariffs, Blackpool also scores strongly. At 28.4%, it has one of the highest rates of economic inactivity in Britain.

Economists caution that the effects of Trump’s tariffs will be felt throughout the labour market and the economy overall, even if it is yet unclear how severe the damage will be.

Reed’s believes that the worst is still to come: “At the moment, our labour market is getting tougher, so we’re seeing fewer jobs.”

“My expectation is that the labour market will continue to get tougher, and that all this uncertainty around tariffs makes that more likely rather than less,” he says.

JP Morgan’s Allan Monks recently issued a warning, saying that the UK labour market’s fragility was still “a key domestic concern.” The slower market has already caused PageGroup, a recruiter, to witness a 9.2 percent drop in profits in the first quarter of this year.

PageGroup CEO Nicholas Kirk issued a warning: “We are not providing forward-looking guidance on business performance given the recent introduction of tariffs and the resulting market uncertainty.”

After experiencing three once-in-a-lifetime catastrophes, Gen Zers and millennials are now wondering if another one is impending.

There is optimism for brighter times ahead for young individuals like Jack who are attempting to navigate the labour market.

Farmers warn of a supply constraint, raising fears of chicken shortages in Britain

British chicken is in short supply at supermarkets after farmers claimed that red tape was limiting their capacity to raise more chickens. In order to prevent a supply shortage, poultry producers are requesting that the government expedite a planning revision that would enable farmers to construct larger poultry sheds and raise more chicks.

Grocers may have to buy more chicken from abroad if they don’t take this action because supplies from UK farms are starting to decline.

One of the biggest meat producers in Britain, Cranswick, said that because of the delays in the sheds’ development, consumers will “100%” see more chicken imported from abroad on sale.

The warning comes as Sir Keir Starmer is under pressure from Donald Trump to permit the sale of chlorinated US chickens in the United Kingdom.

The US president has asked for the removal of limitations on chlorine-washed poultry, which are prohibited in the UK, claiming that they are based on “non-science-based standards” as part of his tariff offensive. It is believed that the present shortages in the UK resulted from large shops implementing stricter welfare standards.

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Tesco, Sainsbury, and Morrisons are among the retailers that have reduced their bird stocking levels during the last 18 months in order to allow hens more room in sheds.

It implies that in order to maintain output levels, chicken producers must open additional locations.

“There is white shelf space now because chicken is in huge short supply and farmers can’t expand any more because we can’t get planning permission,” stated Adam Couch, the chief executive of Cranswick.

“The UK is currently about 65–70% self-sufficient in poultry, and that is declining.”

Earlier this year, Environment Secretary Steve Reed promised to relax planning laws so that farmers could construct bigger chicken barns.

Supermarket owners and agricultural leaders, however, are reportedly putting pressure on government to make the commitment sooner rather than later since, in the absence of it, Britain may experience a shortage of chicken. After selling just British chicken for 20 years, Asda has already begun purchasing chicken raised in Germany. It claimed that this was a short-term decision made for its Essentials line.

However, attempts by producers to get projects approved have been stymied as late as this month.

This month, Norfolk regulators banned Cranswick’s plan for a “mega-farm” that would raise 700,000 chickens.

Siding with opponents who brought up concerns about the farm’s odour, animal welfare, pollution, flood risk, health, and traffic, the council unanimously rejected the plans.

Cranswick had expressed worries about the threat to the UK’s food security in a letter to Members of Parliament prior to the court’s decision.

The briefing memo stated that “now is the time Britain needs to produce more food at home” due to rising trade tensions. But according to Mr. Couch, Westminster had ignored the warning.

He stated that while it was “all well and good, the action on the ground isn’t following through” on the allegations that ministers were cutting red tape to increase investment.

“It’s a real food security issue that we have here,” he said.

A government spokesman said: “Food security is national security, and for too long existing planning rules have got in the way of increasing food production. That’s why we will consult on national planning reforms to make it quicker for farmers to build infrastructure they need to boost their food production.”

The UK must be able to meet the demand for welfare-driven, eco-friendly, and nutrient-dense proteins, according to James Mottershead of the National Farmers’ Union.

He said: “At a time when shoppers are understandably nervous about increased imports of chicken which have been produced in ways which would be illegal here, and when the Government has repeatedly stated that food security is national security, it’s vital that the planning system enables poultry producers to maintain a strong supply of home grown chicken.”