Young people like me must go back to work and get the British economy moving
COVID-19 has delivered a stinging haymaker to the UK economy.
The question now is how quickly it will get off the floor.
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And the truth is, as with so much right now, nobody quite knows.
But two things are certain: A recession is coming, and the longer lockdown lasts, the longer Britain will spend on the canvas.
So getting Britain’s economy going again must be a priority.
And as we find out more and more about who is at risk from this plague, it is becoming increasingly clear that getting people like me — the young — back to work is the first and most sensible step on the road to recovery.
We all know that coronavirus hits the oldest hardest.
Nobody proposing lifting lockdown measures is ignoring the horrendous individual tragedies of all of those who pass.
Every time the number of deaths goes up by just one, that is another family who have lost a dear loved one.
But that does not change the fact that out of the more than 30,000 Brits who have sadly succumbed to Covid-19, fewer than 400 have been under 45.
PLUNGED INTO PARALYSIS
I have lost count of the number of conversations I have had with fed-up friends who, like me, are desperate to get back to work, to continue with their hard-fought-for careers.
If anyone might be safe to return to work — and, of course, no one is completely safe from this bastard of a virus — then it is us.
Just about every measure of the economy, from car sales to manufacturing performance, has hit a record low over the last few weeks — and that will only get worse.
Some economic forecasters reckon it could take more than three years to get the economy back to where it was at the start of 2020.
And top economic wonks at the Institute For Fiscal Studies reckon youngsters will be hit hardest by the coming recession. I am 30, so when I joined the workforce we were in the midst of a financial crisis that plunged the economy into paralysis.
I have endured years of political to-ing and fro-ing over spending, infrastructure projects and — whether you voted for it or not — Westminster’s tortuous Brexit chicanery that has slowed down economic growth.
The price? Real wages, measured alongside inflation, only got back above their 2008 levels this year.
House prices shot up to unaffordable levels, with governments promising to build the houses we need but failing miserably to take on the vested interests that stand in the way.
Young people could already only dream of owning a home before the world shut down.
Just this week, a friend sent round a story on WhatsApp about the possibility of house prices collapsing.
We all just laughed and agreed we still could not get anywhere near a deposit, and not because we have been enjoying too much avocado toast.
And just as we looked forward to a British bounce once Brexit was in the rear-view mirror, now a global pandemic has made 2008 look like nothing more than a trailer for the main event in which this young generation, yet again, gets a starring role.
It is not just about getting money moving and business booming, either.
The temporary schemes introduced by the Government to get people through the worst of this crisis will leave a borrowing pile that not even Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell could have dreamed up.
Most likely, that means higher taxes and lower spending for decades. In short, Britain’s under-45s are being condemned to years of an economy going backwards.
So it is time for them to be allowed back to work and start the recovery. We should all be invested in British companies’ success.
The better they do, the more jobs they create, the more they can pay, the better life is. Yes, there is a risk to getting the young back to work.
But witness the orderly queues outside supermarkets and the pavement shuffle dance that we have all perfected to give each other space.
The public, young and old, understand the threat of this virus.
We invented all these video apps everyone is now socialising on. We are more than happy to use them for a little while longer.
FLATLINING WAGES
As for employers, they have built everything from thriving construction businesses to high-tech apps.
It is not going to be beyond them to install plastic screens in the office, and nor are Lisa in marketing and Phil in accounts going to make like Professor Pantsdown in the filing cupboard.
Are we prepared to trust our fellow Brits, take that risk and allow the next generation a better chance to succeed?
Even some of those in the highest at-risk groups will acknowledge we cannot live in economic shutdown forever.
Even the boffins at Oxford know a vaccine will take months, if not years.
And if TikTok-ing millennials are not exactly winning much sympathy, what about the parents of young kids?
Anybody looking after children at home right now knows full well their productivity is close to zero.
They need schools and nurseries open, too.
MOST READ IN OPINION
Britain’s most dynamic cities and companies are being driven by the young, from the video game industry in Dundee to the start-up hubs of Shoreditch.
They have had a decade of flatlining wages, a housing crisis and now the corona crash.
The Prime Minister has said it is time to get Britain going, the young should be allowed to lead the way.
- Andy Silvester is deputy editor of business paper City AM.
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