Record numbers not working due to ill health

The number of people not working in the UK due to long-term sickness has risen to a new record, official figures show.

More than two and a half million are not working due to health problems, the Office for National Statistics said.

It blamed a rise in mental health issues in younger people and people suffering back and neck pain, possibly due to home working, for the rise.

The figures also showed the squeeze on pay remains, with wage increases failing to keep up with rising prices.

However, public sector pay is now growing at the fastest pace for about 20 years.

A rise in part-time and self-employed workers helped to push up the employment rate in the first three months of the year, the ONS said, and the number of job vacancies fell again.

Since the start of the Covid pandemic, there were “well over 400,000 more people outside of the labour market due to ill health,” Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, told the BBC’s Today Programme.

Mr Morgan said there had also been “an increase in the category that includes post-viral fatigue so perhaps long Covid having an impact.”

Typically, for every 13 people currently working, one person is long-term sick.

One of the reasons why the UK economy has been doing less well than other developed nations has been the case of the missing workers, after millions stopped working during the pandemic.

Getting these people back to work is a key part of the government’s plan to get the economy growing again with changes to the rules around health-related benefits and universal credit in the March Budget aimed at helping to address the shortage of workers.

The latest figures show mixed progress on this front. Significant numbers of students, carers and even some retired people have started looking for work again, pushing the inactivity rate – the key measure of people not in work – down to 21% – the lowest level in three years.

However, the rise in the number of people too ill to work is likely to worry policymakers.

“We should be concerned by the high number of people who are economically inactive because they are sick, and progress on tackling inactivity overall is too slow.

“It is a year since the ONS reported on high worklessness, labour shortages and high inflation and too little has changed. This is holding the economy back by constraining companies’ ability to grow,” said Neil Carberry, chief executive at the industry body Recruitment and Employment Confederation.

By Michelle Roberts, digital health editor

Sitting with proper posture is one of the best things you can do to prevent back and neck problems.

So it is easy to see how spending long hours sitting at a desk, hunched over a laptop could be bad for you.

The latest data from the ONS suggests musculoskeletal issues are on the rise, and likely linked to the shift to home working that happened to many of us during the pandemic.

If you use a home workstation, the advice is to make sure the top of your computer screen is level with your eyes and about an arm’s length away from you.

You should be able to relax your shoulders when you are typing and keep your elbows at 90 degrees.

Take regular breaks too to stand up, stretch and move around.

If you have neck or back pain, chat with your doctor or see a physiotherapist.

Employers are also required by law to protect the health and safety of their workers

The employment rate edged up to 75.9% between January and March, the ONS said, helped by more part-time employees and self-employed workers, but the unemployment rate also rose slightly to 3.9%.

The latest figures from the ONS also showed:

While job vacancy numbers have been falling steadily in recent months, there are still more than one million unfilled posts.

In response to the latest figures, the Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, said: “It’s encouraging that the unemployment rate remains historically low but difficulty in finding staff and rising prices are a worry for many families and businesses.”

But shadow work and pensions secretary Jonathan Ashworth said the government was a “drag” on the economy with family finances “being squeezed to breaking point by a further fall in real wages” and with fewer people in employment than before the pandemic. – bbc.com