Welcome to Pendle, where lockdown didn’t just damage work – it crushed it. With jobs down 26% and young people struggling, the Telegraph’s Melissa Lawford explores how local efforts offer hope, but the pandemic’s scars run deep. Here’s an extract:
In the four years between March 2020 and March 2024, the employment rate in Pendle plunged from 74% to 47.9% – a fall of 26.1% and the biggest drop recorded in any of the 329 local authorities across England and Wales, analysis shows.
The employment rate has recovered to 58.3% since, but for a time less than half the local population was in work.
This is not because of a large rise in unemployment but rather because of a jump in the proportion of people who are economically inactive, meaning they are neither employed nor looking for a job.
Between March 2020 and March 2024, the economic activity rate in Pendle fell by 21.1%, the second largest drop in England and Wales. At the same time, the number of people claiming benefits has surged by 150%, one of the largest rises in the country.
Pendle shines a light on a national problem that has mystified economists and is costing the Government tens of billions a year in benefits and lost taxation. Spending on incapacity and disability benefits totalled £64.7 biilion last year and will rise to £100.7 billion in 2029-30, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).
Worklessness has surged since Covid, with an extra 893,000 working-age adults classed as economically inactive since the pandemic began, bringing the total to 9.3 million.
Worryingly, this problem is largely unique to the U.K., which is now the only country in the G7 that has a lower employment rate compared to before the pandemic.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has promised to fix the problem, with Labour campaigning on a pledge to get Britain’s employment rate up from 75% to an unprecedented 80%.
Since coming to power in July, the Government has started drawing up a “Get Britain Working” white paper, expected to be published this autumn, which Reeves says will “tackle the root causes of inactivity”.
However, any mention regarding the cost or legacy of the pandemic was conspicuously absent from her maiden Budget speech.
Yet the message from Pendle is clear – more than four years on from the start of the pandemic, a large chunk of Britain’s workforce is still broken by lockdown. …
Nationally, the number of people who are economically inactive because of long-term sickness has surged by 638,000 since the pandemic began to hit 2.8 million, according to the ONS.
Mental health is a major driver, and the change is particularly stark among the younger generation. …
Since it opened in 2021, 1,269 16 to 24 year-olds have been referred to the Pendle Youth Employment Service (Yes) Hub – 240 of whom have now gained employment and 225 are now enrolled in education or training.
But without individual, tailored support, many young people across the country face a cliff edge when they leave school – and they are increasingly slipping through the net.
The number of 16 to 24 year-olds not in education, employment or training (Neet) has surged by 109,000 since the pandemic and is at a nine-year high, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Almost all of this increase has been driven by young men.
Fewer children are also attending school altogether. Cases of “severe absence” from school have surged by 160% since 2020, with one in five children now “persistently absent” from the education system, according to the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ). …
Local employers in Pendle warn that Covid and the shift online have also had a long-term impact on attitudes to work.
“I think the country as a whole has almost lost that sense of responsibility. People used to have a bit more pride,” says John McBeth, the business manager at Pendle Support, a local care company that employs around 100 people.
The move to remote working has made people feel less accountable, says McBeth. “They didn’t have to get out and go to the office and park the car. We’ve had some people where we’ve done interviews over Zoom and they’ve been sat there in their pyjamas.”
McBeth has also struggled with employees who simply do not show up.
“We’ve had staff who have rung us and said ‘I’m not coming to work today’, and we’ve said, ‘Are you poorly? What’s wrong with you?’ And they say, ‘No, I’m just not coming to work today,’” says McBeth.
“When we go down the route of saying ‘that’s not acceptable’, they’re like, ‘What do you mean?’”
Lee has experienced the same problem. “They say, ‘I’m feeling a bit sad today so I don’t want to come to work.’ That is certainly a running theme among the younger members of the team.”
Worth reading in full.
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Honestly, how many more years will lockdowns be blamed for lazy bums being workshy, or irresponsible parents not making sure their kids are in school?
Also, perhaps somebody in the know can answer me this but, I was under the impression in the UK you had to attend the dole regularly and provide proof you were actively looking for work. Is this no longer the case? Is languishing at home, collecting benefits now a lifestyle choice?
Surely people should be made to work in warehouses, factories or in the fields harvesting caulis in the cold, and if they turn their noses up they get their dole money stopped? Beggars can’t be choosers and even if it’s a crappy job it’s a foot in the door and you can surely look for something better once in employment. This article reads like working in the UK nowadays is optional.
My sentiments exactly!
“I dont feel like coming to work today”
“Are you ill?”
“Not really, just fed up”
“OK, your sacked, ill make sure you’re paid all you’re owed to date, bye”
That was in my day!
I’ve posted this on similar posts on FB (and possibly here, I can’t remember) but what are we asking the young to work for?
It was bad before COVID but the huge inflation during and since mean other than those with wealthy parents most will never own their own home and the rental markets such a mess even a secure rented home is rare.
Blair’s ridiculous plan for 50% to attend university has led to huge numbers attending who are taking unsuitable or unnecessary degrees.
However because that’s become the norm job’s that don’t “need” a degree (police is an obvious example but there’s plenty more) advertise for them so it becomes a self fulfilling loop.
The employment market has changed and is continuing to do so and with improvements in AI and automation long term employment prospects are bleak for the young.
The tax burden is the highest since the war and will keep rising. Along with the overall cost of living.
The young are taxed to pay the (increasing) pensions of the old while at the same time being told they won’t get one when they get there.
I’m 42, work hard/long hours (including in the past warehouse, factories and cutting caulis) and I own my own home (2 years left on mortgage). If I didn’t have that I seriously doubt I’d work the way I do/have previously…
To be clear I’m in favour of (and expect) people to work. However as I said at the start, what are they working for? I’m realistic enough to understand people need an incentive to work for.
As I’ve said to my dad (67) on several occasions when we discuss this matter, the world he grew up in and raised me for has gone.
It’s a shame that people feel like that
I am very much in a bubble – we employ lots of young people who earn a very good living – they are lucky enough to be able to do the work, and they work hard. But we are a small firm. What I have heard and seen about larger firms, which seem to be more common in many sectors because of consolidation, often seems awful to me – talent and hard work are not always recognised or rewarded
Back when I was 18 college wasn’t going well and my manager at my part time supermarket job was aware and he spoke to the store manager. I was pulled into the office on my next shift and offered a full time job as his (additional) assistant manager.
I took it and had to work hard but it enabled me to work up across the next 17 years and is a large part of why I’m where I am now.
That would be impossible these days due to the rigidity in structures and requirements to advertise etc.
Also it started while I was there but has accelerated since, with the move to “pay equalisation”.
When I started I was paid a lot less than the other assistant manager but he was far more experienced so didn’t bother me. By the time I left my pay rises were being held back to increase the pay of less experienced managers with smaller departments.
The days of a store manager being able to say you do a good job here’s an extra £1,000 are gone as everything needs to be fair and equal if someone (particularly if they have a protected characteristic) complains…
It’s good that you were able to work your way up. I think it’s hard for a large organization to make sure the right incentives are in place from bottom to top. Smaller companies probably don’t survive long unless they reward good performance, and the boss of a small company is surely going to look after the good staff, because his success depends on them.
I don’t know what the answer is.
I completely understand why a business with approximately 1,400 sites and 140,000 employees needs rules to maintain standards across all sites. It just doesn’t help when you’re on the wrong end of those rules…
I’m pleased your business is going well and your staff are well paid. Sadly there’s not enough companies like you (because of consolidation) to go round
I guess there are benefits to the consumer from businesses that size, and possibly benefits to staff (more job security, once you are in). But it would drive me nuts to work in one.
All the woke stuff doesn’t help, ditto the ridiculous obsession with “safety”
Mrs ToF used to work for Pizza Express. When she started, a lot of the restaurants were franchises where the owners had a lot of autonomy regarding the staff. For some reason they all got bought out, but before that certainly the branch Mrs ToF worked in was not at all “corporate” in feel but was very much a creature of the three owners. That model appeals to me more than what we’ve ended up with.
We had a Budgens where we used to live that became a franchise for a while, and it improved massively when that happened.
Ha… It’s been a “lifestyle choice” for decades…
There certainly is some degree of weight to be apportioned to lockdowns being responsible for the workshy….
The Marxist ideology is conveniently favorable to many… after all, UBI is straight out of the Marxists playbook…
Rely on the State
Be controlled by the State…..
Libertarians are a rare breed…
“I’m always surprised how few Libertarians exist!”
I’m going in that direction, in my old age…
Apparently, most interviewing these days is done online, as is claiming for benefits. Much easier just ticking boxes that sitting in front of someone and actually explaining what you have been doing to look for work.
I think one of the sure fire ways of wangling the benefits system is via the ‘mental health’ route. I think GPs are far too much of a soft touch when it comes to doling out sick notes for sackless people to pass on to the benefits office ( and if you start mentioning suicidal ideation you’re golden. Especially given how long it takes to see an actual mental health professional who’d evaluate you ) to say this person is unfit for work due to debilitating depression, or some such claptrap, so then that person knows they’re good for several months, just so long as they can keep convincing their doctor they’re too depressed to work.
The problem with this is it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for many because the longer you spend out of work the more likely you are to fall into actual depression, as everybody knows, for most people anyway, going to work even in a crummy job you might not like brings many benefits, such as increased confidence/self-respect/self-esteem, which come as a result of having responsibilities and personal accountability when you must be on shift for a certain time and fulfill your obligations to your boss throughout your workday. Keep doing that for a while then you’re more likely to get a good reference, you’ve job experience so you can maybe move on to something better where you’ll be happier.
We’ve all been there. I think my worst job many moons ago was working in a fish factory. I needed to get 2 buses to work and back and stank of fish. I lasted 6 days.
“I was under the impression in the UK you had to attend the dole regularly and provide proof you were actively looking for work.”
You are out of date.
Not since the 1970s when it was decided the unemployed were “entitled” to holidays just like everyone else and could draw their dole in advance so they could have a super time on the Costa del vino.
Claims that people on holiday weren’t available for work were contemptuously dismissed… Tory scum!
“mystified economists”
From the same team that brought us “baffled doctors/scientists”
Pay people not to work. People don’t work. It’s puzzling.
Abolish the welfare state and State-run public services and watch employment levels surge, vast improvements and decreased costs of the now privatised public services.
Every public service now undertaken by the State once was provided by tte private sector until nationalised in order to extend the power and control of the State and those running it, over the people.
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has promised to fix the problem, with Labour campaigning on a pledge to get Britain’s employment rate up from 75% to an unprecedented 80%.
Was the tea lady telling the truth or is it just another one of Labour’s pre election lies? And given that Thieves has raised the cost of employment in her budget I can hardly see the employment rate going up.
“Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has promised to fix the problem”
Enoughsaid
I find some stat’ presentations annoying, this article indicated that the employment rate was 74% and fell to 47.9% a drop of 26.1%. Relatively speaking yes, (probably government figures) if you mark the drop against a potential of 100% employment. However an employment figure of 74% of population falling to 47.9% is a drop of 32% in employment. Governments tend to use relative rather than actual. ie, 2 opposed to 1 out of 100 is a relative increase of 100% or 50% reduction between the two readings, however the actual difference against the 100, is technically insignificant.
Honesty seems to be of a low order, but we all knew that, who read here.
“Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, has promised to fix the problem…”
By increasing the payroll expense – yes Rache’ll fix it.
It isn’t just the will to work it is the will to live. They’ve taken all of the joy out of life. Can’t get married anymore, can’t have sex anymore, can’t own a house. Can’t go travelling abroad or down the pub with your mates or go practicing your favourite sports activities and so even if you had a really good well paid job what the hell are you going to spend it on? You even hear of people in top jobs having to stay at home with parents or having to come to some sort of crappy living arrangement because they can’t even afford to rent. How can you expect morale to be high under such circumstances it’s ridiculous.