Alcohol harm: A hidden productivity crisis in the UK workforce

About this episode

The episode discusses the economic costs of alcohol harm on productivity in the UK workforce with Dr Jamie O’Halloran.

On this month’s podcast we spoke to Dr Jamie O’Halloran, senior research fellow at the influential progressive think tank IPPR, the Institute for Public Policy Research. We discussed their new report Taking Stock: Counting the economic costs of alcohol harm , which looks at the impact of alcohol harm on people’s productivity at work. We also spoke about why the public health economic arguments can be harder to make than the industry arguments, and what employers and the government can do to reduce alcohol harm and improve productivity. On the episode Dr O’Halloran explained that: What we’re trying to show in this paper is that alcohol-related productivity losses are holding us back. It’s going to lead to lower growth, lower output, and then reduced profit, reduced taxable profits for government. It should be in everyone’s interest to target alcohol harm, not just for health, but then also for the economic benefits too. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit instalcstud.substack.com

People in this episode

Host: Institute of Alcohol Studies

Guest: Dr Jamie O’Halloran

Topics covered

• alcohol harm
• productivity crisis
• public health
• economic impact
• workforce
• government policy

Keywords

• alcohol harm
• productivity
• UK workforce
• economic costs
• public health
• IPPR
• Dr Jamie O’Halloran

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: IPPR, Institute for Public Policy Research

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