Sickness leave tumbles by a lot more than 25% given that 1993

Minor illnesses, such as coughs and colds, accounted for 27m lost days final 12 months. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

The amount of doing work days misplaced to sickness fell to 131m in 2013, and was down by a much more than a quarter on the figure recorded in 1993, official figures present.

However, despite the fact that the amount of sick days taken is usually falling, a lot more doing work days were lost to tension and depression.

The Office for National Statistics mentioned the average employee took four.four days off in 2013 due to sickness, in contrast with 7.2 days in 1993. Above the exact same period the total quantity of days misplaced has fallen from 178m.

Although concerns about work reduction during the recession may have prompted some people to go into work rather than calling in sick, the amount of days taken off was falling in the runup to the economic crisis. The ONS explained most of the fall in sickness absence took location between 2003 and 2011.

The major result in for functioning days lost in 2013 was musculoskeletal conditions such as back and neck ache, which led to 31m days off, while minor illnesses such as coughs and colds resulted in 27m days sick. Anxiety, anxiousness and depression have been the result in of 15m absence days, up from eleven.8m in 2010.

Dr John Philpott, director of The Jobs Economist, said the scale of mental well being troubles could be even larger, even though disguised by staff providing other motives for their absence.

“Although widespread psychological overall health difficulties account for only eight% of all working days misplaced to sickness absence, the disturbing upward trend indicates that the Uk workforce is turning out to be increasingly stressed out, with stress from bosses to get the work carried out ever far more intense at a time when falling true wages mean most employees are struggling to make ends meet,” he explained.

“Critics are incorrect to dismiss this kind of absence as simply symptomatic of a ‘sickie culture’ and must as an alternative direct their interest to the excessively controlling management practices and insecure labour marketplace circumstances, such as the increasing incidence of zero-hours contracts, that are triggering growing numbers of employees to crack under the strain.”

The ONS figures showed that guys had a decrease absence rate than girls, shedding 1.six% of their hrs to sickness in 2013, in contrast with two.six% among women.

“Females and guys work in distinct sorts of jobs and when controlling for these differences and other factors that influence sickness, girls had been 42% more probably to have a spell of sickness than men,” the ONS said

The ONS also compared the self-employed with staff and identified that while those in employment lost 2.1% of their operating hrs to sickness, amongst these working for themselves the figure was just one.two%.

The percentage of hours lost to sickness in the private sector was lower than in the public sector, at 1.8% and two.9% respectively. Sickness prices were larger for people doing work in a health authority or NHS believe in

(3.4%), followed by people in central government (three%).

The ONS explained: “When controlling for the different elements that influence sickness, public sector staff had been 24% much more very likely to be off function due to sickness than people in the personal sector.”

Sickness leave tumbles by a lot more than 25% given that 1993