Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Economy – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 16 February 2022.
Well, it depends where businesses are, in which sector they're operating, as to the particular pressures they've got, but everyone is going to face some of the challenges about the increases in energy prices, for example. So, there is a really significant challenge.
As we're, hopefully, coming out of the emergency phase of the pandemic, businesses are looking from survival to the future, and I am looking forward to having more regular conversations with stakeholders from those business groups, whether it's in retail, the visitor economy, the rest of the economy, about what we can do to support them with the plans that they will have for growth of their business and what that means in terms of the jobs and keeping the staff they've got, because one of the big challenges, again, every sector faces is the challenge for labour. As the labour market has become tighter, there's a greater premium on skills, there's a greater premium on keeping experienced and good staff, because other businesses are looking to recruit those people. In many ways, lots of the wage growth that we have seen in the sectors where it's existed has been because of the competition for people already in work, with other companies looking to pay a premium to get those people to move across. But you can expect me to have those regular conversations with business groups and individual businesses to see what we can do to help them to find the sources of business support and capital that may help them to see their businesses sustained in the future.