Workers put in fewer hours since the pandemic as sick notes soar

WORKERS around the world are putting in fewer hours than before the pandemic as the number of sick days surge, according to a new global report.

People are now working an hour less per week on average compared to pre-covid, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), after a “significant” rise in sick days. Sick days in the UK rose by 36pc between 2019 and 2022, according to the report. A record 185.6m working days were lost because of sickness or injury in 2022, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has previously said.

A surge in ill health has been blamed on long waiting lists for NHS treatment, a rise in mental health issues post-pandemic and back problems.

In Germany, working days lost to ill health rose by 38pc between 2019 and 2022, the ILO said. In Estonia, sick days surged by 72pc. The rise in sick days appears to be a “broad phenomenon” across the world, the agency said.

Deteriorating health could explain why workers are putting in fewer hours globally, the ILO said. Workers now toil for 41 hours a week on average, it said, compared to 42 hours before Covid.

The drop has come despite stagnating productivity and real incomes, suggesting people are not working less because their jobs are getting more efficient and better paid. Deteriorating health could be behind the fall in average working hours globally, the ILO said, blaming ageing populations and long-term impacts from coronavirus.

The report said: “Long Covid, affecting around 20pc of those infected by the virus, according to the World Health Organisation, may be having a significant impact on activity measures of labour markets.” Workers in some sectors, such as healthcare, have reduced their hours after suffering burnout during the pandemic, the ILO said. The agency added that the impact of pandemic-era policies, including furlough, were “fading only slowly and have prevented a faster recovery of average hours worked”.

The ILO said that reductions in the number of hours worked may “enhance well-being”, but threaten to put further strain on the jobs market as many companies struggle to recruit. Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, has made keeping people in work a priority to boost growth.

Reforms to sick notes announced last year aim to make “treatment rather than time off work the default,” he said in the Autumn Statement.

The World Bank this week said that the 2020s risked becoming a decade of “wasted opportunity”, with global economic growth in the first half of the period set to be worse even than the aftermath of the financial crisis.