Where have all the workers gone?

And when I ask where have all the workers gone, I am not just meaning social workers, but I will get on to those. Whether you are going out for a meal (waiter?), trying to get your extension done, or a school built (builder anyone?) or desperately trying to fill your social work vacancies, the workers seem to have…well, evaporated.

It does appear that the incredible cocktail of Brexit and Covid has created a special hangover none of us quite saw coming. Workforce statistics are showing that the number of over 50s who are ‘economically inactive’ is at its highest level. Large numbers of people are leaving their professions to retrain, and many others who now used to home working and a readdressing of the home/work balance are wanting to work much more flexibly. We are seeing newly qualified social workers (Gen Z & Millennials) with a very different attitude to working life. They want to work part-time, take career breaks to have life experiences and see their job not as ‘one-for-life’ but as part of a rich mosaic which will morph and change over time. They work to live not live to work and local authorities’ traditional ways of working and terms and conditions do not fit well with this ethos.