Officials figures show, new records are indicated with regard to number of people not working in the UK. Due to prolong sickness. The officer for National Statistics said that due to various health problems, more than two and a half million people are not working.
The increase number is due to home working, where the younger people are suffering from back and neck pains and an increase in mental health issues.
Generally, for every 13 people who are working currently, there is one person who is long term sick. Darren Morgan, Director of economic statistics at the ONS said, Since the beginning of the covid pandemic, there were more than 400,000 people outside of the labour market due to ill health.
Mr. Morgan said, since there is a rise in mental health conditions and back and neck pains, also an increase in category that includes post-viral fatigue. So perhaps long covid having an impact.
During the pandemic millions of people stop working, due to this reason the UK economy has been doing less than other developed nations. The key part of the government’s plan, is to get these people back to work, so that economy will grow again with changes to the rules around health-related benefits and universal credit, aimed to help to address the shortage of workers in the March budget.
However, the increase in the number of individuals is ill to work, which worries the policy makers.
Neil Carberry chief executive at the industry body the recruitment and employment confederation said, “We should be concerned by the increase number of individuals who are economically inactive since they are sick and progress on tackling inactivity overall is too slow”
It is a year since ONS reported on labour shortages, high worklessness and high inflation and too little has changed. This holds the economy back by constraining companies’ ability to grow. The present ONS figures also show the squeeze on pay remains, with wage increases, failing to keep up with rising prices. Growth in regular pay excluding bonuses, within the first three months of this year was 6.7% and 5.6% was the pay growth in the public sector. This was the highest rate since 2003.
However, the regular pay falls by 2%, when price rises are taken into account.
By law the employers are required to protect the safety and health of their workers.
