By Elena Siniscalco Good news or bad news first? Well, the good news is unemployment is at its lowest since the 1970s. The bad news is that this isn’t because more people are in work – employment is still 300,000 lower than pre-pandemic. Rather, large numbers of people aged over 50 and those with long-term health conditions have left the labour market altogether. There are now one million fewer people in the jobs market than if pre-pandemic trends had continued, making it harder for employers to find the workers they need. Perhaps this is just an inevitable consequence of the pandemic, as peop…