Retail Excellence has said the process of winding down the Pandemic Unemployment Payment needs to be accelerated, in order to help address acute shortages in staff being felt in the retail and other sectors.
Chief executive Duncan Graham said the situation has become very serious since the start of the easing of restrictions. "If you talk to recruiters around town, they'll tell you there is an enormous shortage, they have a huge number of vacancies, across all levels in fact - in retail particularly - and it has been very, very difficult to fill those," he said.
Mr Graham said a lot of people left the industry during the height of the Covid crisis, as non-essential retail was closed during nine of the last 18 months.