The number of people out of work because of long-term sickness has leapt to a record high of more than 2.8 million.
Economic inactivity, describing when an individual is out of work and not looking for a job, has been increasing steadily since the start of the Covid pandemic, pushed up by a greater prevalence of long-term illness.
Before the pandemic 2.1 million people were classified as being economically inactive owing to long-term sickness. It means that there has been an increase of about 700,000 over the past three years, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics.
Analysts at HSBC said: “The latest period saw yet another rise in long-term sickness, meaning that the total number of those aged 16 to 64 inactive
