Forget tax cuts – to fix the economy we need to fix the NHS

The number of people looking for work has fallen. But so has the number of people in work, as an increasing number of Britons find themselves made ‘economically inactive’, writes James Moore

‘The stresses and strains caused by Covid have left the UK with nearly seven million people on NHS waiting lists’ (PA)

A question that someone in government needs to answer: how are you going to produce the growth you keep banging on about without the workers to fuel it?

The latest labour market data ought to provide some relief for an administration facing economic crises on multiple fronts – given that joblessness, at least, is not among them. The problems created by the cost of living crisis, which are huge, would be worse by orders of magnitude if people were camped outside their nearest Jobcentre Plus branch in the hopes of securing the last job in town.

Unemployment fell to just 3.6 per cent during the May to July 2022 quarter, a decline of 0.2 percentage points. It has gone beyond recovering to pre-Covid pandemic levels and is now at its lowest level since 1974. The same, however, is not true for the rate of employment. The proportion of working-age adults – 16 to 64-year olds – in employment stood at 75.4 per cent during the same period, also a decline of 0.2. percentage points. That number remains below pre-pandemic levels.