The United Kingdom will study whether the use of weight loss drugs could get people back to work.
UK Health Minister Wes Streeting announced last month that US drug manufacturer Eli Lilly will begin a five-year trial in Greater Manchester to test if the company’s weight loss drug could curb the UK’s unemployment crisis.
The announcement came a day after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer hosted a summit to encourage investment in the UK, which was attended by Eli Lilly.
But what have weight-loss drugs got to do with unemployment and how will this work?
What is the weight loss drug experiment in the UK?
On October 14, Starmer hosted a summit to encourage investment in the UK. Attendees included David Ricks, the chair of US pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, who announced a 279-million-pound ($365.4m) investment in the UK. Further details about how this money would be spent have not been revealed.
Eli Lilly is the manufacturer of weight loss drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound.
About 3,000 residents of Greater Manchester will take part in the study that aims to observe the long-term effects of weight loss drugs. Further details of the study are not known yet.
According to the 2021 official health survey, about 25.9 percent of adults in the UK are obese, while another 37.9 percent are overweight. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), a person with a body mass index (BMI) of more than 25 is considered overweight, and those with BMI of more than 30 are considered obese.
Obesity-related health issues cost the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) 11 billion pounds ($14bn) each year, UK Health Secretary Streeting said while announcing the Eli Lily study.
What is the unemployment rate in the UK?
The unemployment rate in the UK was 4 percent of all those aged over 16 who are actively seeking employment, as of August 2024, according to the UK parliament’s research archive, the House of Commons Library.
There is also economic inactivity in the UK, which means people are not in jobs and are not actively searching for jobs. According to a UK Labour Market Statistics report published on October 15, there were 9.26 million economically inactive people aged 16 to 64 in the UK. The term “economically inactive” encompasses both those people aged over 16 who are actively seeking employment, and those who who are not seeking work or are unable to work. The latter includes students, retired people and those caring for others.
Between June to August 2024, 30 percent of people said they were economically inactive due to a long-term illness and 27 percent said it was because they were students. These numbers are around the same level they were the previous year.
The UK Labour Market Statistics report does not elaborate on whether obesity or diabetes were specific health issues that influenced economic inactivity.
The chief executive of unemployment charity Yes Manchester, Adam Green, told the BBC that obesity was not the main reason why some people were struggling to get employed, however.
“It’s a complicated area and very much observational data only,” Philip Newland-Jones, a consultant pharmacist in diabetes and endocrinology at University Hospital Southampton in the UK, told Al Jazeera.
“Studies show that those that are unemployed are more likely to be obese, and the longer you are unemployed the more likely you are to be obese. There is no strict causation attached to this and no absolute strong evidence that obesity is what has led to unemployment, or that it continues to hamper employment,” Newland-Jones said.
He added that he is unaware of any study that suggests that giving people weight loss drugs results in getting people back to work. “I presume this is the data that the UK government will look to generate with these trials in the hope that the cost of the medicines will be paid for by increased productivity, or increased GDP,” he said.
