Unemployment may remain at or near historic lows, as the government is fond of reminding us, but such positive headline numbers hide a deep malaise in the UK’s labour market.
Three years after the end of the pandemic, the country’s labour force participation rate — the number of people either in or seeking work as a percentage of the working-age population — remains stubbornly below where it was in 2019. The UK is the only one of the G7 economies not to have bounced back to above its pre-Covid level, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
France, Germany and Italy have all managed increases in the rate of about 2 per cent over the period, while even the second worst performer, the
