UK Says Long Covid May Explain Much of Spike in Inactivity Rate
More than 200,000 Britons who left the UK labor market in the year to July reported suffering from long-Covid, official statistics show.
Analysis by the Office for National Statistics found a link between the virus and the soaring levels of workforce inactivity since the pandemic struck, which is posing severe economic problems for the UK.
A link between Covid and inactivity, which measures people who neither have a job nor are looking for one, has long been suspected, but there has been little conclusive evidence so far. The figures shed light on why so many people have dropped out of the workforce since the pandemic, one of the things that’s pushing up wages and inflation.