UK loses nearly four million days to worst strikes since 1990

BRITAIN’S economy has lost nearly 4 million working days to strikes since the start of last year, with little end in sight to the worst industrial unrest in decades.

Another 257,000 days were lost in April, the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday (Jun 13), a month in which junior doctors, nurses and some civil servants protested against below-inflation pay offers.

The ONS had previously published this data from June 2022 following a pause for the pandemic. However, it has now released numbers starting from January last year.

The total days lost since the start of last year rose close to 3.9 million, the most since 1989-90, when Margaret Thatcher was still prime minister.

Junior doctors will strike again for three days this week, in an ongoing dispute over pay, while senior consultants are also being balloted over potential industrial action.

Stubbornly high inflation has exacerbated the UK’s cost-of-living crisis, with workers staging walkouts across a range of sectors including rail, health care, education, airports and Royal Mail.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research previously estimated that industrial action has triggered over US$1.6 billion in direct costs. 

In April, Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt said the government was willing to take “short-term damage” from strikes as it battled to rein in inflation. 

“The worst possible thing for junior doctors, nurses, teachers and rail workers would be if there was still concern about inflation this time next year,” Hunt said at an International Monetary Fund meeting. 

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Last month, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he had difficult choices to make in order to “figure out what is fair when it comes to taxes, what is the responsible thing to do when inflation is high, and I’ve got to figure out what is a fair pay deal.” BLOOMBERG