GROWING numbers of workers are needing NHS services after official figures today showed more adults are off-work due to illness, the TUC warned.

The statement came as the Office for National Statistics (ONS) labour market figures showed wage growth fell to 6.1 per cent in the quarter to January — the slowest growth in more than a year.

Britain’s unemployment rate also rose unexpectedly to 3.9 per cent in signs of a cooling jobs market after the country slipped into recession at the end of last year.

More than a fifth of adults — 9.25 million — are not actively looking for work, with the so-called inactivity rate increasing year on year to 21.8 per cent, the figures show.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “Working people are still paying the price for the Conservative government’s failures.

“Pay packets are still far smaller than they would have been without the longest living standards squeeze in history, and vacancies continue to fall.

“Millions of people are unable to work due to long-term sickness, while NHS waiting lists are longer than ever.

“We need a fresh start with a proper plan for jobs, growth and public services to get living standards rising again.

“This must include more investment in our NHS so that people can get treated faster and return to work.”

Millions of workers in severely insecure work will be hit hardest by the stagnating wages, warned the Work Foundation think tank at Lancaster University.

Work Foundation director Ben Harrison said most staff are unlikely to be feeling richer as the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) still forecasts real wages won’t get back to 2008 wage levels until 2026.

“This near two-decade period of stagnating wages is likely to hit the 6.8 million people in severely insecure work hardest,” he added.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt insisted the government’s “plan is working,” saying: “Even with inflation falling, real wages have risen for the seventh month in a row.”

Shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said: “Fourteen years of abject Tory failure is laid bare by today’s figures.

“On the Tories’ watch, millions of people are locked out of work due to long-term sickness at huge cost to them, to business and to the taxpayer too, while we are now the only G7 country with an employment rate still below pre-pandemic levels, with the OBR damningly forecasting this to remain for years to come.”