There are currently 9.3 million working-age people in the UK who are not in work or actively looking for work, and the numbers have been increasing since the pandemic. Since 2019, an additional 415,000 working-age people are not in work or actively looking for work. A sizeable proportion of these people have a long-term health condition – around one third in the latest estimates.
The Government recently announced its ambition to achieve an 80% employment rate – something Learning and Work Institute (L&W) has called for since 2022. This goal cannot be achieved without action to support people with health conditions to stay in, or return to, work. As part of their plan to achieve this ambition, the Government is producing a White Paper to Get Britain Working. There are many reasons why an 80% employment rate would benefit the UK; our previous research showed that reaching this target could boost our economy by £23 billion per year, public finances by £8 billion and household incomes by £830 per year on average.
L&W believes employment support has a key role to play in achieving this goal and supporting people with health conditions to work. Our recent report, commissioned by Health Equals, found that ableism hampers the effectiveness of employment support programmes and services. The report also found that employers often lack awareness and understanding about how to help people with long-term health conditions to find, and remain in, work. There is a clear need for reform to employment support services to make sure they meet the needs of people with health conditions.
To better understand the challenges people face, L&W recently undertook research to explore the wider characteristics of those out of work due to long-term illness or disability. We also looked at whether these characteristics vary by where people live in England and Wales, and how those who want to work can best be supported to do so. We explored this through analysis of the most up to date information currently available from the Annual Population Survey and the 2021 Census. The work was funded by Maximus, a national provider offering a wide range of employment support, including specialist support for people with work-limiting health conditions.
The roundtable also highlighted the key role employers have in ensuring people with health conditions are supported in work.
The analysis showed that across England and Wales around one-in-five people of working age who were not working or actively looking for work due to ill-health wanted to work. However, there were pronounced differences between regions in the percentage of this group who wanted to work, with the lowest proportions in Wales and London (around one-in-six) and the highest proportions in the South West and the East of England (around one-in-four). Across most regions, women of working age who were not actively working or looking for work because of ill-health were more likely than men to say they did not want a job, but this is likely to be due to women taking greater responsibility for unpaid domestic tasks, such as caring for others, including dependent children.
We then presented this analysis at a roundtable discussion hosted in September 2024. The roundtable brought together stakeholders from central and devolved governments and the third sector to reflect on what effective, integrated employment support should look like.
Stakeholders agreed that effective employment support should be:
- Tailored to the needs of individuals and groups
- Based on existing knowledge of what works
- Designed with employer input
- Marketed widely to make sure those who need support know it is available and that they are eligible
- Offered long term, with funding to support this.
Beyond individual programmes, stakeholders reflected that the employment support system should:
- Be simplified, with fewer competing programmes
- Reach those furthest away from the labour market
- Move away from siloed working and instead offer wraparound support that integrates different services
- Provide early, community based, preventative support to help people at risk of stopping working to continue to work
- Make sure that those who live outside metropolitan combined authority areas are not left behind by changes to how employment support is funded and delivered.
The roundtable also highlighted the key role employers have in ensuring people with health conditions are supported in work. However, stakeholders flagged that even employers with the best intentions often do not know how to support employees with health conditions. The current Disability Confident scheme means prospective employees know that employers will try and accommodate their needs, but still does not guarantee effective support while working. And it is not just those applying for work who might need support – someone’s health can fluctuate throughout their life, so employers need to make sure they give current employees regular opportunities to let them know if their needs have changed.
Our research highlights key considerations for the Government in their forthcoming White Paper on the Plan to Get Britain Working. This provides an opportunity to reform the delivery of employment support in the UK to make sure people with health conditions are not left behind.
