The UK government has put forward ambitious plans to reform the UK’s employment support system. Helping people to find, stay in and succeed at work is a complex policy area. With unemployment at historically low levels, the key issue driving these new reforms is the high number of people – nine million across the country – considered to be “economically inactive”.
Economic inactivity measures the number of people who are not in work, but who are also not actively seeking it. Many who fall into this category are unable to work and should not be expected to.
However, such high levels are a worrying indicator of widespread exclusion from the labour market. This is bad news for individuals, given the many benefits that being in (good-quality) work brings. It is also bad news for the government’s economic growth ambitions – as it acknowledges, the talents of too many people are being wasted.
