The figures are startling. While unemployment stands at almost 1.5 million, the number classified as “economically inactive” has soared to 9.4 million, with 2.8 million out of work due to long-term sickness and 900,000 young people - one in eight - not in education, work or training.

In Scotland, recent statistics suggest almost a quarter of working age people are economically inactive, slightly higher than for the UK as a whole. The numbers are even worse for younger age groups with an “economic inactivity” rate among 16-24 year-old men of 36.8 per cent and for women, 37.8 per cent. These figures are unsustainable for any society that aspires to prosper.

A recent Scottish Government paper stated: “Compared with 1998, younger workers (in their twenties) are now more likely to be economically inactive due to ill-health than workers in their forties. Older workers are now actually less likely to be economically inactive due to ill health than they were in 1998”.

Read more by Brian Wilson

That is a massive warning sign for what lies ahead unless the syndrome is broken. The reasons behind these statistics are complex and have been exacerbated by the Covid aftermath. But most OECD states have returned to normality far more quickly than our own.

Anyway, as the same Scottish Government paper pointed out, the trend was well under way in advance of Covid. It stated: “Between 2012 and 2019, two-thirds of those young people were economically inactive due to a mental health condition”. Covid certainly compounded that dimension but it did not create........

© Herald Scotland