The seaside town Of Hastings on the Sussex coast has the highest proportion of people out of the workforce because of sickness, with roughly one in ten not in employment.
Around 5,500 people there are claiming Personal Independence Payment (PIP) for an illness, disability or mental health condition, up 44% since before the pandemic in January 2020.
Under-40s have seen the fastest decline in health since the pandemic, with mental health conditions the most commonly cited ailment.
Figures from the 2021 Census show the number of young people aged 16 to 34 in Hastings saying they had bad health was joint highest in Britain.
Analysis of economic inactivity data published by the ONS is based on small sample sizes and can be volatile, but it is indicative, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The problem of poor health and the linked crisis in economic inactivity has become worse since the pandemic. Hastings’ inactivity rate of 14.7% is up from 4.3% in 2019.
“Young people just don’t want to work anymore, Claudio Ganadu, managing director at Rustico Italiano, a restaurant group that employs around 80 people across Sussex told the Telegraph.
“It is not a priority for them. They do not believe work is as valuable as an hour doing something else. Fewer under-25s are applying for jobs and many who do are lazy.
“The difficulty is not recruiting but recruiting the right people that are actually willing to work for a business. People are not as willing as before to do some jobs. They just want to be stress-free.”
Catherine Parr and Laurence Bell, who have run the White Rock Hotel on the Hastings seafront for nearly 20 years, say many job applicants do not actually want to work, but go through the motions of applying for jobs to satisfy the job centre.
“We find a lot of people apply for jobs who have no intention of taking the job. Maybe they come for an interview but they’ve got no intention of taking the job. They just want to show the Job Centre that they’ve been for an interview.
“I think younger people don’t just work for money, they work for social interaction. And if you’re getting that another way, if your friends are unemployed, and you can all hang out together, then there’s not the same drive to have money.”
In Hastings, one in 10 young people leave school with no plans for higher education or work – almost twice the English average.
And in terms of opportunities for young people, Hastings has more in common with Blackpool than regional neighbours such as vibrant Brighton or posh Tunbridge Wells.