The labour market continues to ease with employment and vacancies down. The number of people economically inactive due to long-term sickness is up 700,000 since the pandemic. But 1.7 million people who are economically inactive say they would like a job. The answer isn’t further tightening benefit eligibility or focusing on a so-called ‘sick note culture’; it’s widening and improving help to find work.

Today’s labour market figures show that the number of young people not in employment or full-time education has risen by nearly 100,000 over the past year. Furthermore, an additional 56,000 people aged between 16 and 24 have now been out of work for six months or more compared with one year ago. Without action to reverse this trend of rising rates of economic inactivity and unemployment, the consequences for these young people, and for the wider economy, may be felt for decades to come.