A million ‘missing workers’ – reality or myth? JOIN THE DEBATE

Official statistics suggest there are over a million job vacancies in the UK - and the AoI Economy Forum has organised a discussion about it next Tuesday.

The mystery of why people in the UK appear to be shunning paid employment in increasing numbers is the focus of an online discussion organised by the Academy of Ideas Economy Forum next Tuesday evening (21 February), titled ‘Have Brits fallen out of love with work?’, introduced by Linda Murdoch. Registration is free, so please join us.

One of the things that has been holding back the UK’s economic recovery from the pandemic has been an apparent shortage of workers. Quarterly figures published this week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that unemployment rose a little in the period from October to December 2022, but remains low at 3.7 per cent. Meanwhile, there are over one million vacancies across the UK – a number that has declined a little, but remains high.

As Kate Andrews noted this week in the Spectator, over two million people of working age are currently not working due to ill-health. Millions more are on some kind of out-of-work benefit. The pandemic seems to have led to a rise in people taking early retirement, too. In other words, there is no absolute shortage of workers available, but they are either unwilling to take up jobs or don’t have the necessary training and skills to do so.

An excellent article by Economy Forum regular Phil Mullan for spiked points to the wider economic picture in the UK. High rates of vacancies are in part due to a rise in people changing jobs after the pandemic, having decided to stay put while restrictions were in place. Economic inactivity has been higher in the recent past. The trends that have been causing such alarm are, in part at least, overblown and transient.

More concerning, Mullan writes, is the failure to acknowledge the long-term moribund state of the economy. After years of stagnating productivity and a failure to train staff, many people remain uninspired by the prospect of working long hours in dull jobs for low wages. In many important areas of the economy, wages may just about cover a miserable existence, but they do not hold out the prospect of ‘getting on’ in life.

But is this simply an economic issue? Whatever the quality of jobs, have we seen a shift in attitudes to work itself in recent years? Rather than grind it out for years in unrewarding employment for greater comfort and security in the future, perhaps more and more people are willing to settle for lower living standards in exchange for more freedom – that life is simply too short to stick it out at work. Equally, with high inflation outrunning wage rises, more and more people may have to return to work just to make ends meet.

I’m very much looking forward to Tuesday’s discussion to try to tease out what is really going on. If you’d like to join us, tickets are free of charge and available here.