評論
打印
Illness is stopping Britons from coming back to work.
疾病使英國人無法重返工作崗位。
During the 2010s the British economy grew not by becoming much more productive but by keeping people in work for longer.
在2010年代，英國實現經濟的增長的方式并不是提高生產率，而是延長人們的工作時間。
Of the 4m or so extra workers who became employed in 2010-20, two-thirds had lived for more than half a century.
在2010-2020年新增的400萬左右工人中，三分之二的人年齡已經超過50歲。
Since the pandemic many of these veterans have gone absent without leave.
自疫情爆發以來，這些“老兵”中的許多人擅離職守。
New labour-market data, covering the three months to the end of November 2022, show that there were roughly 300,000 more inactive workers over the age of 50 compared with the first quarter of 2020.
截至2022年11月底的三個月的勞動力市場新數據顯示，與2020年第一季度相比，50歲以上的非活躍工人大約增加了30萬人。
Number-crunchers divide those out of work into two groups—the unemployed, who are looking and available for work; and the inactive, who are not.
統計者把失業人群分為兩部分——失業者，正在尋找并可以找到工作的人；以及非活躍工人，即不再尋找工作的人。
There are far more inactive workers (about 22% of the working-age population) than unemployed ones (under 4%).
非活躍工人的數量（約占勞動年齡人口的22%）遠遠多于失業工人(不到4%)。
Inactive workers include the long-term sick, the retired, those looking after children, students and those who have given up looking for work.
非活躍工人包括長期患病、已經退休、需要照顧孩子的人，以及學生和那些放棄找工作的人。
The ranks of the sick have apparently swollen the most since the pandemic.
自疫情以來，患病人數明顯增加了最多。
There were an additional 300,000 workers between the ages of 16 and 64 who said they were inactive because of long-term illness in the third quarter of 2022 compared with the first quarter of 2020.
與2020年第一季度相比，2022年第三季度，年齡在16歲到64歲之間的員工中，有30萬人表示他們因長期患病而處于非活躍狀態。
(The other big increase was among students, typically at the younger end of the age spectrum.)
（非活躍數量大幅增長的另一個群體是學生，通常是年齡較小的學生。）
But research by Bee Boileau of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think-tank, shows that the increase in ill-health is among workers who have been inactive for over five years rather than among those who recently left the labour force.
但“財政經濟學研究所”智庫的比·布瓦洛研究表明，健康問題的增加發生在超過五年非活躍的工人群體中，而不是近期離開勞動力大軍的工人中。
She points to another, unrelated trend: more workers have been retiring early.
她指出了另一個無關的趨勢：越來越多的工人提前退休。
Pension rules, introduced in 2015 and known as "pension freedoms", allow those over the age of 55 to withdraw their nest egg early and gradually draw down the balance to live on.
2015年，被稱為“養老金自由”的養老金規則出臺，該規則允許55歲以上的人提早提取儲蓄金，并逐漸提取余額以維持生活。
The pandemic boosted the value of these pots.
疫情提振了這些存錢罐的價值。
First, would-be retirees had more cash to save through not going into the office or socialising; second, lower interest rates and a stockmarket boom lifted the value of financial assets.
首先，準退休人員居家辦公或不參于社交活動能夠省下更多的錢；其次，較低的利率和股市的繁榮提升了金融資產的價值。
Some will have used the windfall to retire.
一些人會用這筆意外之財退休。
