A RETAIL executive’s claim that an early retirement boom was fuelling inflation was dismissed as “nonsense” by a leading left economist today.

John Lewis chair Dame Sharon White blamed the so-called “great resignation” that has led to a million people leaving the workforce for putting pressure on employers to raise wages to keep staff, which she told Radio 4’s Today programme fuelled inflation.

But Progressive Economy Forum director James Meadway told the Morning Star that Dame Sharon’s words were “just another attack by a company boss on workers asking for higher pay.

“It’s nonsense to pretend that when wages are rising 4 per cent, but prices are already rising more than 9 per cent, that wages are somehow pushing up inflation.

“And if a few more workers want to take a well-deserved early retirement, good luck to them — we should want to live in a world where more people can retire early. If that means record-breaking profits are getting squeezed, so much the worse for profits.”