The rate at which Britons are returning to work after the coronavirus pandemic remains the slowest of any European country, hampering the UK’s economic recovery, reports The Spectator. The labour market in the country is 361,000 fewer people than before the pandemic and the number of those on long-term sick leave has risen by almost 440,000.
The UK is slower than the rest of Europe to return to pre-pandemic coronavirus employment levels, which remains one of the country’s biggest economic problems, writes The Spectator.
As the publication notes, this is costly to the treasury and slows economic growth, with taxpayers’ money going to pay for welfare benefits and jobs being empty. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that the situation in the UK is improving, but slowly.
Around 12% of the working-age population in the country receive unemployment benefits, which is around 5 million people. Meanwhile, the official number of unemployed has recently risen to 3.9%, which is a good sign as it shows that more people are actually looking for work.
The data also show that the number of vacancies has fallen for the tenth consecutive period. The number of vacancies has fallen by 55,000, but still stands at just over 1 million . To compare, the average for the decade before the pandemic was around 600,000.
The period from the end of last year to the first quarter of this year also marked a record number of people who switched from ‘economically inactive’ to ’employed’, with around 156,000 returning to work or starting work. As The Spectator notes, this is mainly due to students who have finished their studies and started working.
However, there are 361,000 fewer people in the labour market in the UK now than before the pandemic. At the same time, the number of people on long-term sick leave in the country continues to rise: it has reached a new high of almost 2.6 million. This is almost 440,000 more than before the pandemic.
Wages in the private sector rose 7% and 5.6% in the public sector, but when adjusted for inflation, it turns out that real wages in the country are falling.
All this, according to The Spectator, suggests that the UK’s economic recovery won’t accelerate any time soon.
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