Unemployment is up… but Britain’s sickly workforce is an even bigger problem

Economic inactivity is now higher than in the depths of the pandemic, says James Moore – so why is so little being done to change it?

Getting Britain’s economically inactive back into work should be a government priority (PA )

Britain’s unemployment rate has risen to a six-month high of 4.2 per cent, and the number of vacancies has fallen for the 21st consecutive month (no, you did not misread that number). Those are the headlines from the latest labour market data.

While this is clearly bad news, there is a longer-term and far more troubling trend to be found within the numbers served up by the Office for National Statistics (ONS): our workforce is a sickly one. And it is getting sicker.

The “economic inactivity” rate for working-age adults rose to 22.2 per cent over the December-February period; there were 9.4 million people not in work, not looking for it, and not claiming unemployment benefit. That is a rise of 150,000 when compared to the previous quarter, and 275,000 when compared to a year ago.