According to the boss of the UK's biggest business group, the UK should use immigration to solve worker shortages.
Tony Danker said that politicians need to be practical about immigration.
His speech comes at a time when firms are struggling to find staff.
Robert Jenrick said bosses should first look at the domestic workforce.
The unemployment rate in the UK has gone up, and the Bank of England predicts it will double by the year 2025.
Business investment in the UK has fallen recently and is still below pre-pandemic levels according to the ONS.
In his speech, Mr Danker said that the UK should allow economic migration in places where skilled workers are not available.
"We don't have the people we need nor do we have the productivity, so we need to be honest with people," he said.
Hundreds of thousands of people have stopped working after Covid. It's not realistic for anyone to think that they'll all be back in a day or two.
There's a skills mismatch in any case because we don't have enough Brits to fill the vacancies. It's not realistic to think automation can step in to do the job in most cases.
Mr Danker wants more fixed term visas for overseas workers.
Mr Jenrick told TalkTV that the domestic workforce should be the first point of contact for bosses.
Net migration is something we want to stop. He said that it was important to the British people and that they were on the side of the British people.
Five million people in the UK are not working or looking for work and need to be re-trained and brought back into the workforce.
If they want to return to the workforce, British employers should be helping them get back into it.
The chancellor said on Friday that immigration would be important for the UK economy in the future.
He wanted to improve skills at home so he wouldn't have to rely on foreign workers.
Mr Danker praised some of the government's Autumn Statement, which saw Chancellor Jeremy Hunt set out £55 billion of spending cuts and tax rises in a bid to curb rising prices.
He urged the government to make tough choices so that the UK could solve years of stagnant growth.
The UK's economy is performing worse than other countries and is smaller than it was before the Covid epidemic.
The country is currently in a recession, which is defined as when an economy shrinks for two three-month periods in a row. It's a sign that the economy is not doing well and that companies are making less money.
The war in Ukranian and Covid has caused energy and food prices to soar this year.
The UK is facing labour supply challenges due to it being more difficult for small businesses to trade with Europe or recruit workers due to the end of freedom of movement for EU citizens in the UK.
Net migration to the UK was estimated to be 239,000 in the year ending June 2021, down from the previous year's figure of 260,000. Non-EU countries drove the figure.
Almost three-quarters of UK businesses have suffered from labour shortages in the past year, according to a survey by the Confederation of British Industry.
The boss of Next wants the government to allow more foreign workers into the country.
The UK's current immigration policy is hurting economic growth according to Lord Wolfson.
There is a skilled worker visa scheme for some occupations. A health and care visa for medical staff is one of the things it has.
It's the only thing that's increased the potential growth of our economy since March, according to Mr. Danker.
A stable society requires growth. The UK's health service gets worse without growth. The lives of people get worse. We don't have enough resources to transform ourselves to a zero-carbon world.
Britain has had 15 years of flat-lining productivity. We don't want a repeat.
Mr Danker said politicians couldn't blame EU rules anymore.
British laws created by a British Parliament and administered by British regulators are the biggest regulatory barriers faced by businesses today.
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