Where have all the workers gone? The answer could lie in the NHS

The explanation that fits the evidence best is that the National Health Service is failing to treat people with long-term illnesses who in other countries would have been helped back to work, writes John Rentoul

Since the pandemic the numbers of the “economically inactive” have returned to normal in most countries, but not in the UK (Getty Images)

Something strange has happened to the British labour market. Unemployment has fallen to record lows, but the number of people in work has failed to reach record highs. The last prime minister kept getting into trouble for claiming that there were more people in work than before the pandemic, which wasn’t true and still isn’t.

There has been a rise in the number of people who are neither working nor looking for work. That was to be expected during the pandemic, and it happened around the world. But since the pandemic the numbers of the “economically inactive” have returned to normal in most countries, but not in the UK.

I have written about this before, when I reported that Clare Lombardelli, the government’s chief economic adviser, was worried about it. Since then, more evidence has been published that helps to explain what is happening. The rise in numbers has been driven by the over-50s leaving the labour market because they are in poor health. The Health Foundation found that this trend began before the coronavirus, and that it has continued – in the UK – afterwards.