The number of unemployed, working-age people who are not looking for a job is even higher than first thought, as the UK’s official statistics body revised its figures upwards.

More than a fifth (21.8%) of people aged 16 to 64 were not in work and nor looking for a job in the three months to January, the Office for National Statistics said.

It’s a bigger number – roughly 9.2 million people – than first estimated and an increase from the three months previous.

But the ONS advised “increased caution” when interpreting short-term changes in its data.

It’s been redoing its figures based on latest population estimates but added the caveat: “The reweighting does not address the volatility seen in recent periods and this may be seen to some extent going forward”.

The trend of upwards of a fifth of the working population being out of the labour force has persisted since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While levels have come down from the all-time high of 22.1%, recorded in May to August 2022, the portion of the population classed as ‘economically inactive’ is 1.3 percentage points greater than pre-pandemic times.

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Before COVID hit the UK the percentage had been falling since 1971.

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The trend began to be bucked as more people retired sooner and young people (classed as anyone up to 34) turned to education.

Despite the overall rise, the number of people not looking for work because of family care responsibilities fell.

Another reason people are out of the jobs market is because they are long-term sick, something which also declined in the latest data but remains higher than previously estimated.

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Numbers of long-term sick people reached a record high in September when the ONS said more than 2.6 million people did not have jobs because of their health.

Other data from the ONS also released on Tuesday showed the number of hours worked grew across the UK to 1.06 billion hours a week.

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The number of people in work rose to the tune of 20,000 in February.

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