The Office for National Statistics has published its figures for sickness absence levels across the UK in its annual report for the period October 2012 to September 2013.
Employers may be surprised to note that according to the latest statistics, a total of 131 million days were lost last year due to sickness absence in the UK; which represents a 26% reduction in sick days taken for the same time period 20 years ago. Each employee, on average, will lose 2.1% of their working hours per year to sickness absence.
The main points to note from the report are:
- Minor illnesses (such as coughs, colds, headaches, migraine, dental or gastrointestinal problems) remain the most common reason given by employees for sickness absence, but absences due to musculoskeletal injuries (back, neck and muscle pain) still account for the most days lost;
- There has been a marked increase in stress-related absences, which are now 15.2 million days, up from 11.8 million 20 years ago (a 29% increase);
- The current average number of sick days per worker is 4.4 days per annum, down from 7.2 days per annum 20 years ago;
- Women statistically have a higher level of sickness absence than their male counterparts (women being 42% more likely to take time off sick than men);
- Those working in the Caring and Leisure industries have the highest level of sickness absences, whereas those working in senior management were less likely to take any time off sick;
- Workers who work between 30.1 and 45 hours per week were 45% more likely to have time off work due to sickness than those working under 16 hours per week;
- Workers aged 16 to 24 were 46% less likely to be off work due to sickness than workers aged between 50 and 65;
- Public sector workers were 24% more likely to be off work due to sickness than employees in the private sector.
Whilst the average number sick days remained fairly static throughout the 1990’s, there has been a continuing gradual decline since 1993. The latest drop in sick days may be due to employees being too scared to take time off sick, either for fears about their job security or for financial reasons, although the main deterrent (according to the survey) was employees simply not wishing to let their colleagues down by failing to attend work. Of course on behalf of ourselves and our many hard working HR friends, we would also point to the major strides made over the last 20 years in positively managing intermittent absence in the workplace, through robust policies and procedures, return to work interviews, employee assistance programmes and sensible use of company sick pay.
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