Weird. Long term illness is disability.
Comment on More than a fifth of UK adults not looking for work
Emperor@feddit.uk 3 months ago
Long-term illness has been cited as the main reason for about a third of the working-age inactive population not being in the labour force.
But other groups placed in the bracket - defined differently to unemployment - by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) include students, people who look after family or a home, people with disabilities, and early retired and discouraged workers. More women tend to be classed as economically inactive compared to men.
“Discouraged workers” is an intriguing category.
yeah@feddit.uk 3 months ago
echodot@feddit.uk 3 months ago
These figures never make any sense because they include people who are unable to work.
Yes that’s right people who are unable to work are not looking for work. Ugh really?
yeah@feddit.uk 3 months ago
It tracks tho. Political opinion seems to be that no one is really incapable of work so everyone should be included in the figures. Sigh.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 months ago
Maybe we should give everyone and go at being PM. I mean you can’t be that hard.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 3 months ago
I guess that’s why unemployed is a more often cited number than this one. But surely it is interesting non the less to know how much of the workforce isn’t looking for work?
echodot@feddit.uk 3 months ago
The issue is it doesn’t differentiate between people who are not working because they’re 95 years old and people who are not working because they are sick.
If you’re trying to make policy decisions based on this data it’s literally useless. Maybe you have a very old population maybe you will have a very unwell population. Who knows.
HeartyBeast@kbin.social 3 months ago
It i- just looked it up and the ONS defines it as … the economically inactive population who said their main reason for not seeking work was because they believed there were no jobs available.
Emperor@feddit.uk 3 months ago
That seems oddly… incurious.
GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk 3 months ago
I wonder if it’s people fed up with getting bounced around by zero hour contracts.
It’s not fun making minimum wage with a boss that will only give you 8 random hours a week.
So they go “sod this, I’ll live with my mum and help around the house until I can find a job that treats me properly”
Emperor@feddit.uk 3 months ago
That seems to be it. I remember being on the dole many moons ago and they’d go “you are overqualified for this but there’s this job as a chicken de-boner…” I’d imagine a large section of the job market today is orders of magnitude worse with soul-crushing zero hours work.
thehatfox@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I know a few people in situations like this. Living with family and ticking over on occasional informal cash in hand labour or on previously accumulated savings.