According to an economic study, an average UK family will pay £1,700 extra per year on home bills in 2022.
The Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) predicted that by Christmas, the inflation rate will have risen to 4.6 percent.
Higher gasoline and energy prices are mostly to blame for this increase.
According to analysts, supermarkets have yet to pass on the full scope of growing expenses to customers.
They claim that supermarkets are striving to keep prices consistent during the holiday season, even if it means swallowing part of the expenses, since they don’t want to lose customers during their biggest season.
Due to inflation, a typical UK household of two adults and two children would spend £33.60 more per week in December 2020 than in December 2020, amounting to £1,700 per year.
The estimate is based on the cost of widely purchased products such as food and beverages, clothes, and home goods. Spending on utility expenses, such as gasoline and electricity, transportation expenditures, and money spent on entertainment and days out are also included.
It expects that spending habits would stay unchanged from past years, and that inflation will continue at the expected 4.6 percent (up from the current 4.2 percent ). Experts predict that it will increase much higher in spring 2022, placing even more strain on household expenditure.
Panorama and CEBR, an independent economic consultant, also collated data for popular food goods to compare prices this year and last year.
“I’ve never known things to be as difficult as they are today,” said Andrew Selley, CEO of Bidfoods, one of the largest food wholesalers in the UK. “Whether it’s human resources or product availability, everything appears to be coming together at the moment, presenting us with a really difficult set of conditions.”
Shoppers are already feeling the effects of the price increases. Inflation was making Nikki Rushin, a nurse from Nottinghamshire, nervous, she told BBC Panorama.
“We’re going to have to be a lot more cautious,” she remarked. “We have to budget wisely around food now, while a few years ago, we could purchase anything we wanted.”
She also said that she and her husband, who works at a builders’ merchants, had been unable to save for their two children’ Christmas presents.
Mrs Rushin explained, “Christmas presents, Christmas supper, everything for Christmas needs to come out of the following salary packet.”
The Rushins, like many other UK customers, have noticed increasingly empty supermarket shelves, particularly in the vegetable section.
The commercial director of TH Clements, one of the largest vegetable farmers, Richard Mowbray, claimed his company had been hampered by a lack of seasonal employees from Europe.
TH Clements has boosted pay to entice more British workers to apply, and it expects these expenses to eventually trickle down to customers.
Mr Mowbray, on the other hand, claimed that it wasn’t simply labor that was driving up expenses. “Fertilizer, energy, and oil packing are all involved. Inflation is present in everything we see right now “he stated
The government has provided 30,000 seasonal labor permits, but producers argue that this is insufficient.
European lorry drivers have also been given temporary permits by the government.
Due to a global scarcity of HGV drivers, some UK supermarkets are now paying more than £50,000 per year.
“That translates to better pay for the truck drivers. That is unquestionably excellent news for them “According to economist Torsten Bell of the Resolution Foundation, an independent think tank, “However, it will eventually lead to higher pricing for everyone else.”
The ministry said in October that 300 EU drivers had sought for the 5,000 temporary permits. Panorama has sought updated statistics from the government, which the administration has refused to disclose.
The epidemic created significant delays in the DVLA’s processing of licenses.
Seven weeks ago, Panorama correspondent Jane Corbin filed for a temporary HGV license. She has yet to get it.
Provisional licenses are now being provided within five working days, according to the ministry.
