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A growing number of people in Britain today are classified as economically inactive.

And this is increasingly talked about as a major problem, which is seriously inhibiting

economic growth, as well as being very expensive.

So what do we know about who these people are?

Why they're in the position that they are?

How big a problem is it really for the country?

And what do we do about it?

Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out.

Joining me at Tony Wilson, who's Director of the Institute for Employment Studies,

Sam Avanzo Windet, whose deputy director at the Learning and Work Institute,

and Torsten Bell, Chief Executive at the Resolution Foundation,

and author of Great Britain, How We Get Our Future Back.

Tostin Bell, can we start by defining what we mean by economically inactive?

Yeah, so we don't mean people are entirely inactive.

We mean they are neither doing paid work or looking currently for paid work.

That's the definition in the labour force statistics.

So just that. That's what we mean.

Right. Tony Wilson, at the latest count, how many people in the UK were economically inactive?

Well, so at the latest count, people aged 16 to 64. We've got about 9.4 million people are

economically inactive. And so it's just over a fifth of everybody who's aged between 16 and 64 are outside the labour force.

Right.

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