The overall economic environment continues to be challenging, therefore resilience remains key for charities.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that monthly real gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.1% in January 2025. This reflects a cautious mindset and unpredictability in the global trading environment.
This is mirrored by a softening of global growth prospects in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) economic outlook in March 2025.
Economic inactivity
PwC has published a report on the level of economic inactivity in the UK, and how this presents a major challenge. This report, Turning the Tide on Economic Inactivity, revealed that 90% of employers are concerned about inactivity, with a majority seeing an increase in employees leaving the workplace. Some 81% of employers say productivity has been impacted by economic inactivity, with 77% indicating it is affecting financial performance. More than half of the businesses are worried about recruiting someone who has been inactive and over a third of employers associate inactivity with people “gaming the system”, but a similar proportion see it as a risk to talent they value. Meanwhile, one in 10 workers are actively considering leaving work.
Some 63% of businesses have seen an increase in people leaving the workplace and becoming inactive, and say this is directly impacting productivity and financial performance. Mental health is the key driver, according to seven in 10 businesses, with more than half of employers reconsidering the support they provide. This research suggests economic inactivity will continue to grow, with 10% of workers actively considering leaving work for an extended period. A further 20% have considered leaving in the past year.
PwC’s Women in Work Index 2025 assesses the progress made towards achieving gender equality at work across 33 OECD countries. This showed that the UK’s Index rank fell from 17th to 18th place – the lowest it has been in over a decade. A widening of the participation rate gap in the UK from 7.1% in 2022 to 7.8% in 2023 contributed to this, but the UK is being outpaced in the progress being made by other countries.
In our UK Regional Index, Scotland took the top spot this year followed by Northern Ireland in second and the South East in third. Scotland’s strong performance was primarily driven by an improvement in the gender wage gap, which fell quite significantly over this period from 11.8% in 2022 to 8.3% in 2023. Scotland also continued to record the lowest participation rate gap across the UK as of 2023 at 5.1%.
Daniel Chan is partner and charities leader at PwC
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