Why we should have a massive push to help the long-term sick back to work

The “economically inactive” is a rather ghastly blanket expression used to describe nearly nine million people in Britain. It’s also a highly misleading one because the term covers such a wide panoply of individuals including full-time carers, students, the retired as well those who don’t need to work for a living.

It also covers those who are considered long-term unwell, the biggest category. What’s more, the expression “economically inactive” comes across as rather glib, implying that many of these individuals are shirkers or drop-outs who simply don’t want to work. But that’s not what the evidence suggests.

Precise figures of how the nine million people out of work break down are hard to come by. But estimates suggest that 2.5 million are students, about 2 million are full-time carers and around 2.5 million are now classified as long-term sick with varying degrees of illness.

Sadly, these “economically inactive” are back in the news because the numbers of those classified as such has been shooting up for all the wrong reasons since the end of the pandemic, mainly because so many individuals are either suffering from long Covid, or because of physical or mental ill-health.  

Since the 2020 lockdown, nearly half a million more people are now being put into this economically inactive category. What’s more, this number includes another 194,000 people in the last quarter from May to July, mainly in the two age brackets of 16-24 and 50-64. This suggests there were more students as well as those signing off because of ill-health.  

According to the latest ONS Labour Market survey, this takes the total of those not in the workforce to nearly nine million, the highest since 2015. Up until that year, the trend was moving downwards. In the years up until the pandemic, the proportion had fallen from over 24% to 21.8%, mainly due to government initiatives to help encourage people back into the workforce. 

Compared to the three months to February 2020, which marked the beginnings of the pandemic, the number of economically inactive people aged 50-64 compared has risen to 386,000. Since the final quarter of 2019, and the final three months of 2021, around 493,000 Britons aged 50 or over have now dropped out of the workforce. 

This meant that the number of people in paid work in the first quarter of 2022 was 32.6 million, some 500,000 lower than its pre-pandemic peak of 33.1 million in the three months to February 2020. The fall has been concentrated among 50- to 69-year-olds.

What is more disturbing is that the latest numbers show big discrepancies on a regional basis. Indeed, Wales has seen the biggest increase in the nation’s economic inactivity rate since records began in 1992.

The country has always had the highest rate in the UK with only Northern Ireland and the north-east of England showing higher levels. But these latest figures show a big spike in Wales, up to 25.6% – a rise of 2.3 % on the quarter and 3.5% on the year. Long term sickness was given as the main reason. 

In Scotland, the unemployment rate was down to its lowest on record but once again the numbers of those economically inactive was up to 21.7%, the highest for five years. 

Covid has had a very long tail indeed, one that has left its scars in so many different corners of our lives. Many of those who have stopped working – in both public and private sectors – have done so because they are either suffering from long Covid while the health of others, who were suffering physical or mental problems before the pandemic have found their conditioned worsened by either the lack of or delay in treatment. 

Without doubt, the impact of Covid has run deep, with many in the more elderly age groups who are still either fearful of returning to some semblance of pre-lockdown life or have found security in living a more insulated life. 

Whatever the specific reason, this is a whopping jump in those who opted out of work. Some of them have with good reason, having left the workforce out of choice and taken early retirement as the lockdown demonstrated they could manage on their pensions or savings and didn’t need the extra income.

That shift, however, might be changing again. Other ONS figures reports that the number of people aged 65 and over in employment increased by a record 173,000, taking the total to a peak of 1.468 million people in this age group. One of the reasons for this lift may be that businesses have been forced to offer higher wages: the ONS reported recently that, in June, one in eight businesses had raised pay. This rose to nearly one in four in those industries, such as hospitality and healthcare, where part-time working is more common.

Lockdown also had an impact on those in the 16-24 age bracket, pushing them towards studying because for nearly two years finding a job – particularly in the hospitality and retail trades – was obviously difficult or impossible. 

But it’s the rise in the long-term sick that is the most worrying trend, both for the welfare of the individuals and their families concerned but for policy-makers too. While few doubt the sincerity of those who have joined this category, it’s also well-established that a fairly large proportion of those placed in this bracket would work if they could and were able to.

And the country needs them as the the labour market is at the tightest it has been for years. Economist Simon French, of Panmure Gordon, says there should be some sort of “new deal,” a massive push to help retrain and up-skill people back into the workforce. 

French adds: “Liz Truss and her ministers are making a big push for growth and one of the ways this can be achieved is to have a full and healthy workforce. Helping people back into work and off benefits is not perhaps as glamorous for politicians who like to walk around in hi-vis hats and jackets on construction sites showing off big infrastructure projects.”

“But it’s of great importance and from an economic point of view, you could say this is a perfect time to pick low-hanging fruit and boost the labour market.”

On a wider social point, having a healthy workforce is good for everyone and takes the strain of the NHS further down the line as it prevents people for falling ill with several co-morbidities. It’s well-established that far too many, who may have lost their jobs or left because of poor health, fear that they have been cast on the rubbish heap.

Too many individuals have been out of work for so long that their skills are obsolete. Or more, simply far too many, having been out of work for too long, lack the confidence to get back into the saddle.

It’s well-known that far too many people who have been on welfare benefits for more than two years die far too young. Which is why if we want to heal the scarring of Covid, the government’s social and health policy-makers should now be making a massive push to help people with retraining and building up confidence. 

Until the pandemic struck, there have been many successful government schemes and initiatives helping the long-term sick back into work through the Jobcentre Plus networks with support from work coaches and occupational health experts. This followed on from the reorganisation of Jobcentre Plus in 2011 when the Department for Work and Pensions took charge of the 600 branches. At one time, the DWP had more than 1,000 work coaches helping retrain people and preparing them for work. 

The pandemic has halted much of this work. What is needed now is another big carrot rather than the stick approach to help many of those inactive become active again. We have two years to catch up on. And let’s find a nicer word to describe this category. 

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