A Plea From Britain: Retirees, Come Back

Britain’s top financial official started the year with a plea. To those who retired early in the pandemic or have not found the right job after furlough, Jeremy Hunt said, “Britain needs you.”

Many analysts have concluded the British economy is stumbling partly because it does not have enough workers. The Bank of England has slashed its expectations about Britain’s economic potential, suspecting there is little prospect for growth in the labor supply. Without additional workers, productivity and economic activity will falter.

Employment dropped around the world during the worst of the pandemic, but unlike elsewhere, Britain has not rebounded. The number of working-age people counted as “economically inactive” is still about 490,000 higher than in February 2020, according to data from the Office for National Statistics. Nearly two-thirds of them are over 50.

This is an abrupt reversal from the past, when the gradual growth of Britain’s labor force was a powerful engine for economic growth. Mr. Hunt, the chancellor of the Exchequer, has made expanding the work force one of his central aims and has early retirees in his sights.

Mr. Hunt recently announced a “back-to-work” budget, with substantial changes to private pensions that would allow workers to save much more money before incurring taxes. The measures are aimed at keeping high-earners in their jobs.

But asking early retirees to go back to work could be an insurmountable challenge.

“Many of these adults who have left the labor market are living comfortably in their early retirement, and there’s little that government can do to change their mind,” Louise Murphy, an economist at the London think tank Resolution Foundation, said in a presentation in February.

Among this group are people who had worked in professional and scientific occupations and came from high-paying industries, according to the Resolution Foundation. They are also more likely to have private pensions, which they can draw from beginning at the age of 55, and to own their homes outright.

“History tells us that those who take early retirement rarely return to the work force,” Ms. Murphy said.

Instead, it is better to focus on access to affordable child care and support for people with health conditions so that they can remain employed.

About three dozen people told The New York Times about their decision to retire early, with most saying they had little intention of returning to work, and certainly not to full-time or office jobs. Many cited relief from the stress of their old roles, or said health conditions or caregiving responsibilities made returning to work impractical.

And most were enjoying a

Trying to keep high-earners from leaving jobs.

more flexible daily life, exploring hobbies and spending time with friends and family they feared they had neglected when they were working.

Stephanie Munn loved her job as a dermatologist, moving straight through medical school to becoming a fulltime consultant, without any career breaks.

But the pandemic moved her practice online, and doing consultations and diagnoses via a screen made her nervous. Meanwhile, she was spending the early pandemic lockdowns with her partner’s son and his young family. Ms. Munn retired in September 2020 at the age of 57.

“Priorities changed in Covid, and I wanted to spend more time with family,” she said. “And in the meantime, my mother was failing, too. She’s 86 this year and has dementia. She was needing me more. And I just thought, enough’s enough.”