Sickness absence with a silver lining

Sickness absence with a silver lining

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has just released its sickness figures for 2021. And they aren’t as bad as you might think.

In 2021 approximately 149.3 million working days were lost due to sickness or injury. Which sounds a lot but is the same as just 4.6 days per worker per year.

The most common reason for sickness absence was “Other” conditions, which accounted for 41.5 million lost days. This includes accidents, poisonings, infectious diseases, skin disorders, diabetes, and anything else not covered.  From April 2020, interviewers have advised to code any mention of Coronavirus as ‘Other’, when a supplementary question was asked.

Coronavirus absence accounted for 24% of all sickness absences.

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Sickness absence with a silver lining

The Office for National Statistics (ONS), has just released its sickness figures for 2020. And they aren’t as bad as you might think.

In 2020 approximately 118.6 million working days were lost due to sickness or injury. Which sounds a lot but is the same as just 3.6 days per worker per year and this is the lowest rate since ONS records began in 1995 (1.8% of all working hours lost to sickness).

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected the sickness absence data in a number of ways. While the virus may have led to additional sickness absence, measures such as furloughing, social distancing, shielding and increased homeworking appear to have helped reduce other causes of absence, allowing the general downward trend to continue.

By far the most common reason for sickness absence was minor illness, which accounted for 30.95 million lost days. “Minor Illnesses” includes coughs, colds and flu; sickness, nausea and diarrhoea.

Coronavirus absence was tracked separately and since April 2020, has accounted for 14% of all sickness absence.

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