The government might delay raising youth minimum wages, but that's the least of Britain's labour market problems. The total economic value of the UK workforce has just suffered the most dramatic collapse in modern history.

In 2020, Britain's labour market was worth £12.5 trillion. By 2021, that figure had crashed to £4.2 trillion — a loss of two-thirds of its value in a single year (Source: Office for National Statistics, Labour market overview).

To put that in perspective: Britain lost more economic value from its workforce in one year than the entire GDP of Germany, France, and Italy combined. That's not a recession. That's an economic earthquake.

The trajectory tells the story of a labour market that was already under strain before everything fell apart. From 2017 to 2019, the market's value barely grew — from £12.4 trillion to £12.5 trillion across three years. The kind of sluggish growth that should have been a warning sign.

Then COVID hit. But even accounting for the pandemic, this scale of collapse suggests something deeper broke in how Britain values its workers. When nurses are overpaying thousands in tax because payroll systems can't keep up, you're seeing symptoms of the same dysfunction.

This isn't just about unemployment rates or job vacancies — metrics that can bounce back relatively quickly. This is about the fundamental worth of British labour collapsing. Every hour worked, every skill deployed, every contribution made by the UK workforce became worth 67% less almost overnight.

The timing matters. While inflation figures grab headlines for moving a percentage point here or there, the labour market was hemorrhaging trillions in value. Yet this story barely registers in political debate.

For the average worker, this means the economic system now assigns dramatically less worth to their time, expertise, and effort. Whether you're a graduate starting out, a skilled tradesperson, or a nurse checking your payslip — the market says your labour is worth a fraction of what it was before.

Ministers can tinker with youth wage rates all they want. But until someone explains how Britain's workforce lost £8.3 trillion in value and what's being done to restore it, those debates feel like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.