1m 'lost' workers | Missing labour market data 'overstating' scale of UK's economic inactivity, think tank says

ONS labour market statistics have misrepresented recent trends in the UK labour market – by under-estimating the growth in employment by 930,000 workers since 2019, and overestimating the extent of economic inactivity, according to new Resolution Foundation research.

As the new Government prepares to publish a White Paper that reaffirms its ambition of an 80 per cent employment rate, the report Get Britain’s Stats Working warns that efforts to reach this ambitious target are marred by poor quality data that is leaving policy makers in the dark about the true state of the UK labour market.

Importantly, this uncertainty also hits the understanding of trends in labour productivity, makes it harder for the Bank of England to do its job of managing inflation, and for the OBR to set its fiscal forecasts.

As the ONS and Office for Statistics Regulation are aware, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) has been beset by problems since the pandemic, including a collapse in response rates (from 39 to 13 per cent between 2019 and 2023).