Categories: Economic NewsGovernment PolicyInflation and UnemploymentThe Labour Market

Can the economically inactive fill the staff shortages in the UK?

The British Home Secretary has suggested the training and upskilling of the economically inactive in order to fill the large staff shortages in British businesses across the UK.

According to Patel, there are over 8.45 million people in the UK between the ages of 16 and 64 who are economically inactive and could therefore be employed in the jobs which many businesses are finding it hard to fill.

Whilst this sounds like a great idea, it also sounds like a politician’s one rather than that of an economist. After all, the economically inactive are usually inactive for a reason! In the case of the UK, those reasons are in the graphic below:

The largest category at 27% is students. Most of them are in full-time education and therefore unlikely to be able to fill the staff shortages. The next two largest groups are the sick (26%) and those people who need to look after home or take care of family members (22%). Both of which are also inactive for very good reasons and unable to suddenly start working.

If we now include the 13% who are enjoying their early retirement it is hard to work out how our economically inactive are really going to solve the staff shortages. We only have another 12% and a lot of them probably don’t want to work either!