In this year, the Government published startling statistics about sickness absence and the UK labour market for 2023. It reported:
- Over 1.35 million (53%) of those inactive because of long-term sickness reported that they had depression, bad nerves or anxiety in Quarter 1 2023, with the majority (over 1 million) reporting it as a secondary health condition rather than their main one.
- A record estimate of 185.6 million working days were lost in 2022, averaging at 5.7 per employee.
In this webinar, we focussed specifically on long term sickness. The Office for National Statistics reported in July 2023 that almost 2.58 million people were economically inactive because of long term sickness. An increase of 76% from 2019, before the pandemic.
In this webinar we discussed:
- The difference between short and long term sickness
- Initiatives that employers can use that focus on helping employees get back into work
- How to avoid inadvertently discriminating an employee on the grounds of disability
- At what point do you end the employment relationship on the grounds of ill health capability