The number of people retiring from the workforce is set to outstrip youngsters joining it by several hundred thousand over the next two decades, according to analysis by the Financial Times.

The shortfall is expected to be filled not only by the growing numbers of older people who, as the Financial Times reports today, are re-entering or remaining in the workforce. Continuing high inflows of migrant workers and greater numbers moving off incapacity benefit and into jobs will be crucial to the nation's economic and social well-being, as the century advances leaving an increasing number of pensioners to be supported by a diminishing proportion of active workers.