After years of policy churn, rising costs and new rules arriving faster than anyone can absorb them, many firms have run out of energy to engage, says Georgiana Bristol

There is a strange quiet in the business community this week. Not the calm of confidence, but the hush before something hits. Normally, in the run-up to a Budget, you would hear business leaders making their case, lobbying loudly, trying to shape what is coming. This year, that noise has disappeared.

After years of policy churn, rising costs and new rules arriving faster than anyone can absorb them, many firms have run out of energy to engage. They keep their heads down. They stop hiring. They focus on surviving whatever comes next. For thousands of small and mid-sized businesses, this defensive posture is now standard. Teams are stripped back. Managers are stretched thin. The idea of taking on someone who needs more time or support, a young person who 10 years ago would have been given a shot, feels out of reach. Not because they do not care, but because the margin for error has disappeared.

And businesses can see the bigger problem forming behind this. While they have grown quiet, a far more worrying silence has deepened: young people dropping out of education, work........

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