PHILIP BOWERN
I’VE no shortage of friends ready with what they think is good advice as I gradually reduce my work commitments and ease – gently, I hope – into retirement over the next few years.
But sorting the truly valuable words of wisdom from some deeply misguided pronouncements is no easy task. It is something that everyone nearing pensionable age needs to consider for himself or herself. And as the age at which the state pension kicks in moves further and further away, financial considerations, as much as those involving health and happiness, have a big part to play.
So too, it now transpires, does the nation’s need for workers. Not working has never seemed like an option for me and I am grateful – and lucky – to have avoided any periods of ill-health, redundancy or other pressures that kept me away from work for long.
Yet a combination of factors is leaving Britain woefully short of staff at the moment. And with an ageing society, the growing band of the economically inactive is having a seriously damaging impact on our ability to keep on providing all the support the nation needs.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that in the three months to January this year the number of Britons neither in work nor looking for a job reached 9.3 million. That’s a 10-year high and equates to one in seven of the adult population.
The pandemic clearly has a part to play. Some businesses which furloughed staff when Covid19 struck and lockdowns were introduced never recovered. Furlough became redundancy and some workers never got back into a job.
The pandemic and its aftermath may also have created a changed mindset for some, who wondered if life wasn’t too short – or too precarious – to worry about work and adjusted their aspirations accordingly.
When I was growing up, unemployment was a matter of some shame – unfairly in the majority of cases when a crashing economy caused a jobs crisis – but the incentive to find a job was not only financial. Pride played a part.
Few actually wanted to sign on to get their Giro every week if they could possibly avoid it. It’s no bad thing that attitudes have changed and the stigma of being out of work is less acute than was once the case.
But has the tide turned too far? Central Devon MP and Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride said last week that the number of people blaming poor mental health for their inability to hold down a job was simply too high.
He said labelling what he called the “normal ups and downs of human life as medical conditions” needed to change. He pledged to make 150,000, currently signed off with what he said were mild conditions, begin looking for jobs.
That’s a start – and could prove a lifesaver for many now stuck in a spiral of depression that joblessness often only makes worse.
Work – the structure that having a job brings to your day, your week, your life – has mental health benefits. Doctors signing people off for some mental health conditions might be exacerbating rather than helping their patients.
That said, shortcomings in the NHS which delay treatment for many conditions that affect the ability to work is also fuelling this crisis as is the lack – and cost – of childcare, although that is being addressed by the Government. There is clearly no single ‘cure’ for our shortage of economically active individuals.
Solutions must be found, however. For the sake of the economy, society and individual health and happiness those who are able need to get back to work.
BOLD and innovative, mixing traditional song arrangements with their own material, Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman are folk royalty .... and they will be coming to Mid Devon as part of their latest tour.
The Dartmoor-based husband and wife have twice won the coveted ‘best duo’ title at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, as well as ‘Best Duo’ at the folking.com awards and spiral earth awards.
They consistently deliver assured, distinctive performances whether live or recorded, and in more than two decades of performance they are always bold and innovative, mixing traditional song arrangements with their self-penned material.
They will be performing in Crediton Parish Church on April 19. Tickets are selling fast and are available online via: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/creditonartscentre.