The post-pandemic labour market in the UK has seen record lows of un-employment compared to the rest of Europe. The economy has experienced the largest sustained fall in employment in the G7, with 260,000 fewer people in work now than before the pandemic.

Whilst there are many reasons why people may have left the labour market, it is clear that life post-pandemic has changed the way that we live, with a large number of over 50s taking an early retirement - economic inactivity has been the ‘hot topic’ of the Spring/Summer.

Recent Labour Market data has shown that adults aged over 50 years in the labour market continue to drive the increase in inactivity. In May to July 2022 there were 386,096 more economically inactive adults aged 50 to 64 years in the pre-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic period (December 2019 to February 2020).

Support for those that need it

In a bid to address these changes, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) conducted a review on economic activity, where a range of policies were announced in the Spring Budget to address some of the issues, including more employment support for people with health conditions or disabilities and changes to work search requirements to more people within the Universal Credit system.

Back in February this year, it was reported that job coaches were going to be stationed at GP surgeries to help unemployed over 50s return to work and whilst it wasn’t clear how this would work in practice without potentially damaging the trust between doctors and patients, a few pilot schemes were rolled out across London. The Telegraph recently reported that the government is encouraging GPs to refer patients to life coaches rather than sign them off sick, under government plans to get more people back into work. Sick notes have now been renamed ‘fit notes’ – in what could only be in the hope to help encourage people and employers to encourage their staff back to work.

Although it is not clear what a life coach will help people achieve – we do know that is isn’t just government and employers that care about this topic, citizens also care about their jobs and careers.

Working towards citizen-centred outcomes

Phoenix Insights is working with Demos, a leading cross-party think tank to present a fresh new perspective on employment and careers services that focus on citizen-centred services which will be easy to access and meet people’s needs. This builds upon Demos’ work on a Universal Work Service, a proposal that sets out a new public service which will integrate employment support, skills and careers services, so that they work together toward shared outcomes. The Universal Work Service will offer a clear single point of contact for both individuals and employers regardless of what advice or support they need.

Through devolution to local areas, the service would be more responsive to local needs and priorities, working in partnership with a range of local stakeholders to support local economic strategies as well as the government’s Levelling Up missions. It is clear from Demos’ findings across evaluations of a wide variety of employment support services that strong relationships between citizens and coaches/advisers are vital for achieving good outcomes.

Helping people see that careers can change

Phoenix Insights is building on this work to explore how citizens would best benefit from employment and careers services through the lens of longer lives. As more people are living and needing to work for longer, what does this careers advice and support mean for them.  We also explore this in our latest campaign – ‘Careers advice for longer lives’ where we explore access to support to switch careers in mid-life.  You can find more details on the campaign here.

The careers, employment and skills landscape is currently complicated and fragmented and so we hope that this research will provide policy makers with a clear narrative of how and where citizens want to access careers and employment.

What we’re doing next

• Conduct a national poll to understand citizens’ current awareness, perceptions and experiences of services.
• Draw out lessons from case studies and understand what creates an attractive ‘front door’ to careers and employment services.
• Co-design workshops with citizens – this will be informed by the polls and case studies and will be focused on developing principles for what people want from careers and employment services in order to gain an understanding as to how they would like to access them.

We aim to launch the report in January 2024. If you require any further information or details then please do not hesitate to get into touch with me - shani.wilson@thephoenixgroup.com