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GreatAlbatross

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More than a fifth of UK adults not looking for work (www.bbc.co.uk)

submitted 8 months ago by GreatAlbatross to c/unitedkingdom

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[–] Emperor 49 points 8 months ago (12 children)

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 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Weird. Long term illness is disability.

[–] echodot 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

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 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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 3 points 8 months ago

Maybe we should give everyone and go at being PM. I mean you can't be that hard.

[–] Wanderer@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

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 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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.

This group are included or not included depending on whatever point a particular person is trying to make. If the government is trying to claim that unemployment is down this entire group will not be considered. Because it is ambiguous some legitimate justification has been provided to not include the group.

[–] Wanderer@lemm.ee 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I don't understand. The amount of people not in work, I guess is used to look about how taxes relate overall population to workers. That's important, there is useful information in there.

But like what you are saying that why unemployment figures are used and not number of people in work. Number of people not in work is more of a newspaper headline than anything governments look at.

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