Ministers should integrate health services into job centres to unlock a hidden workforce of about 3 million “economically inactive” people who are without jobs, according to pioneering research that could provide a blueprint for government thinking on the labour market.
The report, billed as the biggest single in-depth study of long-term worklessness, argues that a regime based largely on benefit sanctions has achieved little, and any serious effort to tackle economic inactivity must offer personalised help based on health.
