The number of working days lost to sickness in the UK hit a record high last year, according to official data published on Wednesday that will reinforce fears over the impact of ill health on the economy.
Minor illnesses were the main reason for people to take sickness absence, although Covid-19 was still a big factor, the Office for National Statistics said. The ONS also noted that respiratory conditions had overtaken mental health problems to become the fourth most common reason for sickness.
It estimated the number of working days lost because of sickness or injury in 2022 at 185.6mn, 47.4mn more than the pre-pandemic level and a new record high.
The rate of sickness absence — or the percentage of working hours lost because of sickness or injury — rose to 2.6 per cent in 2022, up from 2.2 per cent in 2021 and the highest level since 2004, according to the ONS.
The increase is a sharp bounceback from the low levels of absence at the peak of the pandemic when many workers were furloughed and social distancing led to a drop in minor illnesses. But it also marks a worrying reversal in the long-term trend: sickness rates have been in decline since the 1990s, reflecting the changing nature of work, and had been relatively flat in the years leading up to the pandemic.
In his Budget last month, UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt made boosting the size of the workforce and lifting productivity a key priority for raising economic growth. The figures will fuel concerns among policymakers that rising levels of ill health, alongside acute pressures on the NHS, are keeping people out of work and weighing on the economy.
The number of people who say they are not working or job-seeking because of a long-term health condition has increased by half a million since 2019.
The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, which sets interest rates, thinks that jump is one reason why labour shortages, and the accompanying pressures on wages, risk making high inflation more persistent in the UK than elsewhere.
The number of people in work who have a long-term health condition has also risen. Wednesday’s figures showed that the rate of sickness absence for this group rose to 4.9 per cent in 2022 — the highest level since 2008 — compared with an absence rate of 1.5 per cent among other workers.
Paul Nowak, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, the umbrella body for the UK labour movement, said even this data was bound to understate the true level of sickness because many low-paid workers were not eligible for sick pay and others could not get by on the “miserly” rate of statutory sick pay.
Separate data released by the ONS showed there was no improvement last year in the UK’s persistently weak productivity — the key factor that determines living standards over the long term.
Growth in output per hour worked in the fourth quarter of 2022 was unchanged from a year earlier, the ONS said. Output per worker and per job were, respectively, 0.2 per cent and 0.3 per cent lower.
Meanwhile, in a report published on Thursday the Institute for Public Policy Research said the UK’s poor record on health was taking a big toll on the economy.
The think-tank found that, since 2020, someone with a new physical illness had experienced an average of fall of about £1,400 in their annual earnings, while the onset of a mental illness cut earnings by roughly £1,700. The drop in earnings for people living in the same household as the unwell person was £1,200.
Although these costs were lower than in the five years leading up to the pandemic, the IPPR said they were “life-changing” for many, with two-fifths of people affected losing 10 per cent of more of their earnings through leaving their job, cutting their hours or finding themselves unable to re-enter work.
