> Christina Barratt was used to the 12- to 14-hour days. For years, she would get into her car each morning and set out to department stores and other retailers all over northwest England, selling greeting cards for a large manufacturer.
“It’s a very demanding, busy job,” she said, recalling how she had to make sales, manage client accounts and grow the business, while often traveling long distances.
In March 2020, at the age of 50, Ms. Barratt got Covid. She hasn’t been able to work since.
Ms. Barratt is among 3.5 million people — or about one in 12 working-age adults in Britain — who have long-term health conditions and are not working or looking for work. The number ballooned during the first two years of the pandemic when more than half a million more people reported they had a long-term sickness, with physical and mental health conditions, according to analysis by economists at the Bank of England. The sharp rise in ill health is a startling problem itself, but there has also been a growing awareness in Britain about the negative effects on the economy of having so many people unable to work.
Sickness is adding to the growing sense of malaise in a country troubled by high inflation and the economic costs of Brexit, where the National Health Service is overwhelmed and workers across industries are striking in ever larger numbers, coming after a year of severe political upheaval.
With the unemployment rate near its lowest point in half a century, businesses have loudly complained that they have been unable to hire enough workers, leaving the government grappling with how to expand the labor market.
Before the pandemic, a growing labor market had been “the single cylinder of growth in the economic engine,” Andy Haldane, the former chief economist of the Bank of England, said in November during a lecture at the Health Foundation, a nonprofit organization. It “has now gone into reverse gear.”
Britain is in “a situation where for the first time, probably since the Industrial Revolution,” health and well-being are in retreat and acting as a brake on economic growth, said Mr. Haldane, who currently serves as the chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, an organization in London that seeks practical solutions to social issues.
The economy is probably already in a recession, according to forecasts by the Bank of England and others, and is expected to return to only meager growth in 2024. Some economists have warned that shortages of workers could deepen the cost-of-living crisis if it causes employers to raise wages to attract workers in a way that threatens to entrench high inflation into the economy. That could prompt the central bank to keep interest rates high, pushing up borrowing costs and restraining the economy.
At the heart of the problem is a high economic inactivity rate that has barely budged despite the end of pandemic lockdowns, a boom in labor demand and a high cost of living. As of October, over half a million more people were counted as inactive than before the pandemic, according to the Office for National Statistics. In a separate study looking at data for the first two years of the pandemic, Jonathan Haskel and Josh Martin, economists at the Bank of England, found that nearly 90 percent of the increase in economic inactivity could be attributed to people who had long-term sickness.
The extent to which sickness is forcing people to leave the work force is still being debated among researchers in Britain because the reasons for not working can change over time. But there is little disagreement that the economy is being held back by having so many people who say ill health has kept them from working.
> “This has been a long-term issue in keeping people with disabilities in the workplace,” said Kirsty Stanley, an occupational therapist.
There are a lot of challenges, including some employers not understanding legal requirements to make reasonable accommodations for employees with health problems, Ms. Stanley said. She is an associate for Long Covid Work, a group that works with unions and employment groups to improve access to work for people with long Covid. Mr. Haskel and Mr. Martin estimate that there are 96,000 people who are economically inactive because of long Covid.
Ms. Stanley, who also suffers from long Covid, said one problem was that the gradual period for returning to work that employers offered to people after a long absence didn’t work well for those with long Covid.
“They basically expect people to go from potentially zero to 100” within four to six weeks, she said. “What happens is people crash.”
A little over two years ago, Michael Borlase did a four-week phased return to work after being sick with Covid. But at the end of the period, after getting back to an eight-hour shift, he got sick again and could not go back to work.
He was a newly qualified nurse working in a psychiatric ward for men with mental health issues who have committed a crime. He was there for just eight months before he got Covid in April 2020.
> “I’d been so poor for so long as a student nurse,” he said. “I was thrilled to be working, work for the N.H.S. and felt very proud of the work I was doing. And then Covid hit.”
“I was very early on in my career,” he added. “And now I don’t know if I can ever go back again.”
At age 36, he said he felt “stuck in a professional limbo,” where he could not do the job he spent years training for but was too unwell to train for something else. Until September, Mr. Borlase received full pay because of a provision for N.H.S. workers with Covid. Since then, Mr. Borlase has been receiving reduced wages from sick pay, which will expire in April.
Delays in getting health treatment have made it difficult for Andrea Slivkova, 43, to return to work. A Czech native who came to Britain 10 years ago, she left her job cleaning offices in mid-2021 because of pain from a prolapsed pelvic organ. It was more than a year before she could have the surgery to address the problem. Since then, she said, she is still unwell but has not been able to have a follow-up appointment with a specialist. Last summer, she was told it would be a five-month wait.
“They told me that the waiting list is long because other people are waiting, too,” Ms. Slivkova said, with her daughter, Kristyna Dudyova, translating from Czech.
Ms. Slivkova still hasn’t returned to work. She described the strain of having a physical health condition but also the struggle to navigate the health care system and the financial stress of relying on government benefits.
Ms. Dudyova recalled how her mother used to be a workaholic, who found time to bake, go to the gym and work multiple jobs if necessary, all while raising her and her younger brother.
“But now everything is just gone,” she said.
1 comment
**Article Text:**
*Written By Eshe Nelson*
> Christina Barratt was used to the 12- to 14-hour days. For years, she would get into her car each morning and set out to department stores and other retailers all over northwest England, selling greeting cards for a large manufacturer.
“It’s a very demanding, busy job,” she said, recalling how she had to make sales, manage client accounts and grow the business, while often traveling long distances.
In March 2020, at the age of 50, Ms. Barratt got Covid. She hasn’t been able to work since.
Ms. Barratt is among 3.5 million people — or about one in 12 working-age adults in Britain — who have long-term health conditions and are not working or looking for work. The number ballooned during the first two years of the pandemic when more than half a million more people reported they had a long-term sickness, with physical and mental health conditions, according to analysis by economists at the Bank of England. The sharp rise in ill health is a startling problem itself, but there has also been a growing awareness in Britain about the negative effects on the economy of having so many people unable to work.
Sickness is adding to the growing sense of malaise in a country troubled by high inflation and the economic costs of Brexit, where the National Health Service is overwhelmed and workers across industries are striking in ever larger numbers, coming after a year of severe political upheaval.
With the unemployment rate near its lowest point in half a century, businesses have loudly complained that they have been unable to hire enough workers, leaving the government grappling with how to expand the labor market.
Before the pandemic, a growing labor market had been “the single cylinder of growth in the economic engine,” Andy Haldane, the former chief economist of the Bank of England, said in November during a lecture at the Health Foundation, a nonprofit organization. It “has now gone into reverse gear.”
Britain is in “a situation where for the first time, probably since the Industrial Revolution,” health and well-being are in retreat and acting as a brake on economic growth, said Mr. Haldane, who currently serves as the chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts, an organization in London that seeks practical solutions to social issues.
The economy is probably already in a recession, according to forecasts by the Bank of England and others, and is expected to return to only meager growth in 2024. Some economists have warned that shortages of workers could deepen the cost-of-living crisis if it causes employers to raise wages to attract workers in a way that threatens to entrench high inflation into the economy. That could prompt the central bank to keep interest rates high, pushing up borrowing costs and restraining the economy.
At the heart of the problem is a high economic inactivity rate that has barely budged despite the end of pandemic lockdowns, a boom in labor demand and a high cost of living. As of October, over half a million more people were counted as inactive than before the pandemic, according to the Office for National Statistics. In a separate study looking at data for the first two years of the pandemic, Jonathan Haskel and Josh Martin, economists at the Bank of England, found that nearly 90 percent of the increase in economic inactivity could be attributed to people who had long-term sickness.
The extent to which sickness is forcing people to leave the work force is still being debated among researchers in Britain because the reasons for not working can change over time. But there is little disagreement that the economy is being held back by having so many people who say ill health has kept them from working.
> “This has been a long-term issue in keeping people with disabilities in the workplace,” said Kirsty Stanley, an occupational therapist.
There are a lot of challenges, including some employers not understanding legal requirements to make reasonable accommodations for employees with health problems, Ms. Stanley said. She is an associate for Long Covid Work, a group that works with unions and employment groups to improve access to work for people with long Covid. Mr. Haskel and Mr. Martin estimate that there are 96,000 people who are economically inactive because of long Covid.
Ms. Stanley, who also suffers from long Covid, said one problem was that the gradual period for returning to work that employers offered to people after a long absence didn’t work well for those with long Covid.
“They basically expect people to go from potentially zero to 100” within four to six weeks, she said. “What happens is people crash.”
A little over two years ago, Michael Borlase did a four-week phased return to work after being sick with Covid. But at the end of the period, after getting back to an eight-hour shift, he got sick again and could not go back to work.
He was a newly qualified nurse working in a psychiatric ward for men with mental health issues who have committed a crime. He was there for just eight months before he got Covid in April 2020.
> “I’d been so poor for so long as a student nurse,” he said. “I was thrilled to be working, work for the N.H.S. and felt very proud of the work I was doing. And then Covid hit.”
“I was very early on in my career,” he added. “And now I don’t know if I can ever go back again.”
At age 36, he said he felt “stuck in a professional limbo,” where he could not do the job he spent years training for but was too unwell to train for something else. Until September, Mr. Borlase received full pay because of a provision for N.H.S. workers with Covid. Since then, Mr. Borlase has been receiving reduced wages from sick pay, which will expire in April.
Delays in getting health treatment have made it difficult for Andrea Slivkova, 43, to return to work. A Czech native who came to Britain 10 years ago, she left her job cleaning offices in mid-2021 because of pain from a prolapsed pelvic organ. It was more than a year before she could have the surgery to address the problem. Since then, she said, she is still unwell but has not been able to have a follow-up appointment with a specialist. Last summer, she was told it would be a five-month wait.
“They told me that the waiting list is long because other people are waiting, too,” Ms. Slivkova said, with her daughter, Kristyna Dudyova, translating from Czech.
Ms. Slivkova still hasn’t returned to work. She described the strain of having a physical health condition but also the struggle to navigate the health care system and the financial stress of relying on government benefits.
Ms. Dudyova recalled how her mother used to be a workaholic, who found time to bake, go to the gym and work multiple jobs if necessary, all while raising her and her younger brother.
“But now everything is just gone,” she said.