The UK is \u201csleepwalking into a quiet epidemic\u201d of joblessness with millions of people out of work and on benefits, the boss of the nation\u2019s biggest supermarket chain has warned.<\/p>\n
Ashwin Prasad, who runs the UK arm of Tesco<\/a>, said he believed far fewer people were in work than should be and that taxpayers were spending \u201can ever increasing proportion of our national income on out-of-work benefits\u201d.<\/p>\n The rate of unemployment sat at a four-year high of 5.1%, according to official data<\/a> released last month.<\/p>\n Prasad, who took the role of UK chief executive last year, said there had been a \u201cclear, gradual change\u201d over the last decade of people falling out of work. He called on the government and businesses to work together to tackle the issue, arguing that it was damaging the UK\u2019s standing on the world stage.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot afford to be a country that lets the next generation languish on the sideline,\u201d Prasad said at an event in London hosted by the Resolution Foundation, a thinktank, adding that the government must stop \u201ctinkering at the edges\u201d of the problem and make bold changes to get more people into work.<\/p>\n More than 9 million people aged 16 to 64 in the UK are classed as economically inactive, meaning they are not actively looking for work or available to start a job. This includes 2.9 million people aged 16 to 24, with almost a million young people not in education, employment or training, a 26% increase from pre-pandemic levels.<\/p>\n Analysis by the thinktank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) suggests more than 700,000 university graduates are out of work and claiming welfare benefits. In December, the government announced an \u00a3820m funding package to help more young people into work or on to learning schemes.<\/p>\n Prasad said there were \u201cmyriad reasons\u201d for many people being economically inactive and that life had been \u201cincredibly challenging\u201d for lower-income households for a sustained period of time, saying they had been at the \u201csharp end of a prolonged era of political instability and economic uncertainty\u201d.<\/p>\n But he added: \u201cMy perspective from being a major employer in this country is that far fewer people are at work than they could be. This means instead of investing in parts of national life that might stimulate investment and growth into the wider economy, we are spending an ever increasing proportion of our national income on our out-of-work benefits.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been sleepwalking into a quiet epidemic that is keeping millions of people out of work,\u201d Prasad said.<\/p>\n Prasad did not say what out of work benefits he was referring to in his claims. The government has said the number of people claiming health-related benefits<\/a> that enable them not to work has increased by 800,000 since 2019-20, while the number claiming a personal independence payment (Pip) to help cover the additional living costs of their disability is forecast to double this decade from 2 million to 4.3 million.<\/p>\n However, Pip is not an out-of-work benefit, and economists have pointed out that overall out-of-work benefits have not risen. Some of the increases have been due to a higher state pension age increasing the number of \u201cnon-pensioners\u201d claiming sickness benefits who would otherwise be on the state pension.<\/p>\n The UK\u2019s Tesco boss also implied that the government\u2019s increases in regulation and employer taxes were harming businesses\u2019 ability to hire more people.<\/p>\n \u201cOur biggest expenditure is the salaries and the wages of our employees,\u201d Prasad said, adding that any change to this cost had a large effect on Tesco as it was such a big employer.<\/p>\n Tesco, the UK\u2019s dominant grocer<\/a>, is the largest private-sector employer in the country. It has more than 300,000 employees across the UK and Republic of Ireland and more than 5,000 stores.<\/p>\n It was accused of giving struggling workers a \u201cslap in the face\u201d when its group chief executive, Ken Murphy, received \u00a39.9m in pay and perks<\/a> as profits soared during the cost of living crisis in 2024. The payout meant Murphy earned more than 430 times the average pay at Tesco that year.<\/p>\n