A wave of people leaving the workforce and choosing early retirement following the Covid-19 pandemic is the single biggest cause of current shortages in the UK labour market, according to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee.
The committee said the outlook for the labour market was “bleak” and that the government should do more to reduce levels of inactivity in the economy.
The report by the investigative committee looked at the number of people who were not in work and not actively seeking work, compared with the number of job vacancies.
It found than an extra 565,000 people have become economically inactive since the start of the pandemic.
Titled “Where have all the workers gone?”, the report highlighted that retirement, increased sickness, changes to migration and the UK’s ageing population have all contributed to the current tightness in the labour market.
“We are unable to say exactly why, but a lot of people over 50 who left work or were furloughed during the pandemic did not come back,” said the chairman of the influential committee, George Bridges.
“There…
