Average number of Sick days taken by Britain workers The new figures have fallen, as the average amount taken by each worker has been detected.
The office of National Statistics (ONS) estimates that there were 148.9 million working days Lost due to illness or injury In 2024. This is equal to 2 percent of the total work hours – a decrease of 0.3 percentage points from last year.
Research for minor diseases was the most frequent cause of absence, accounting for About one third of all casesMusculoskeletal problems were the next most common cause, which was responsible for 15.5 percent absence.
ONS data indicated that women, old employees, individuals with long -term health issues, part -time workers and public sector employees had the highest rate of sick leave in 2024. The average time per worker in 2024 was 4.4 days.
Amanda Walters, Director of Safe Sick Pay Campaign, a alliance Campaign for sick pay improvement, Said: “Decline in the absence of the disease may seem to be a positive growth, but the figures mask the fact that a lot of Britain workers go to work regularly when they are very ill.
“We are at least likely to take sick days in Europe because our mournful legal sick pay system is forcing millions of people to pull themselves into sick work, putting their long -term health at risk as they need to pay bills. This leads to the incurred productivity to the billions of the economy.
“The government is fixing a part of the problem by improving sick pay coverage for some low -income people in the employment bill, but is not enough to solve the regret of our sick pay system.
“The weekly rate of sick salary remains only 3 £ 3 hours for a full -time worker. If we are serious about improving the health of the working age population, the government needs to ignore the elephant in the room and stop the statutory salaries in line with minimum wages.”
Ben Harrison, director of the Work Foundation at Lancaster University, said: “To make people capable of taking time out when they are ill to get better and return to work in good health are important for a strong and successful labor market.
“Workers unable to take time to recover and revive, can be more serious with health issues over time, raising the risk that they can be involved in record numbers of people who are already out of labor market due to sick health.
“The UK statutory salaries are lower than the majority of OECD countries £ 118.75 per week, and our research suggests that 47 percent of UK businesses do not pay above the legal minimum.
“This may mean that people who rely on statutory sick pay can face an option between their health care or watching.”
