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Analysis of UK Absences due to Sickness

Office For National Statistics (ONS)

Update Date: May - 2023

Vladimir Novikov, Carlos Alegria




Data:

Country: UK

Period: Yearly until 2022.

Data Source (ONS): Office for National Statistics - UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and its recognised national statistical institute.

Link to the latest data release: Annual sickness absence rates of workers in the UK labour market, including number of work days lost, by country and region, sex and age group, and employment type.

Information regarding sickness absence statistics:

  • A working day is defined as 7.5 hours.
  • Sickness absence rate is proportional to the total hours lost because of sickness or injury divided by total hours multiplied by 100.
  • Total hours is the sum of total actual hours for those with no sickness and the total usual hours for those with sickness absence.
  • Sickness absence rates are presented as percentages throughout this analysis.


Organization of the Data


data_org


Baseline Numbers - Employed full-time workers


uk_absence_number_workers
uk_absence_number_workers_by_agegroup

We can observe that:

  • About 33 million total full time workers aged 16+, in 2022;
  • About 18.5 million full time workers aged 25-49, in 2022;
  • Growing number of workers aged 50+;
  • Data is calculated from the total days lost vs. days lost per worker, by gender, by age, etc.
uk_absence_number_workers_ag_25_49


Absence rates and lost worktime rates


Lost Workdays and sickness absence rates
plot_absence_rates

Summary:

  • Very similar trends for both Days Lost per Worker and Sickness Absence Rate.
  • Declining trend in absence rates from 1995 to 2020.
  • Large increase in absence rates in 2021 and 2022.
  • We observe a reversal of general health improvement by nearly 20 years, back to 2004-2005 levels.

Absence rates by gender
plot_absence_rates_by_gender

Summary:

  • Similar trends for both men and women;
  • Declining trend in absence rates from 1995 to 2020;
  • Large increase in 2021 and 2022;
  • Women experienced slightly larger absolute increase in absence rates than men (0.9% vs. 0.7%), but men experienced larger relative increase (46% vs. 40%);
  • We observe that the declining trend in absence rates, reflecting general health improvements of the population was reversed all the way back to 2004 to 2005.

Absence rates by age
plot_absence_rates_by_age

Summary:

  • Declining trend for all age groups from 1995 to 2020;
  • Large increase in 2021 and 2022 (and 2020 for the youngest workers);
  • Reversal of the declining trend in absence rates, back to levels observed in 2004 to 2006.

Absence rates by cause



plot_absence_rates_by_cause

Summary:

  • Minor illnesses and respiratory conditions had the largest increases in 2021 and 2022, 70% and 150% respectively.
  • COVID-19 was mainly tracked in the other category, explaining over 100% increase from 2020 to 2022.
  • Most other illnesses were either flat or continued to decline throughout the period, and had only 10 -50%, or 22% on average, an increase from 2020 to 2022.
  • Other illnesses include musculoskeletal problems, mental health conditions, gastrointestinal problems, eye/ear/nose/mouth/dental problems, genito-urinary problems, heart, blood pressure, circulation problems, headaches and migraines.

Note: 'Minor Illnesses' includes coughs, colds and flu; sickness, nausea and diarrhea.



Year-on-Year changes in absence rates


Absence rates by gender and primary age group, YoY changes
plot_sick_absence_rates_YoY_byGender
plot_sick_absence_rates_YoYchanges_25_49

Summary:

  • Year-on-Year changes in absence rates ranged from -5% to 5% from 1995 to 2020;
  • 13% increase in absence rates in 2021 for women, followed by 23% increase in 2022;
  • 20% increase in absence rates in 2021 for men, followed by 22% increase in 2022;
  • 21% increase in absence rates in 2021 for the age group 25 to 49, followed by 19% increase in 2022.

Absence rates by gender and primary age group, YoY change (Z Score, Normalized)

Summary:

  • Normalized (Z-Score) Year-on-Year changes in absence rates were above 5.0 in 2022, when compared to the trend of 1995 to 2019, for both men and women, indicating an extreme event;
  • Z-score for the primary working age of 25 to 49 was just above 3 in both 2021 and 2022.
plot_sick_absence_rates_YoYZscore_byGender
plot_sick_absence_rates_YoY_Zscore_25_49


Deviation from 1995 to 2019 trend absence rates by gender


Absence rates - Deviation from trend, absolute and relative
plot_sick_absence_gender_absolute_deviation
plot_sick_absence_gender_relative_deviation

Summary:

  • The relative deviation from 1995 to 2019 trend in absence rates varied between -20% to 20% from 1995 to 2019. From 2021, we see an increased deviation from trend in each consecutive year;
  • In 2022, the deviation from trend was about 1.0% in absolute terms;
  • In relative terms, the deviation from trend in 2022, for the total full-time workers was about 60%;
  • Absolute deviation from trend was greater in women (1.09%) than men (0.92%);
  • In relative terms, the opposite was true due to women's baseline absence rates being roughly double that of men.

Absence rates - Normalized deviation from trend, Z-Score



plot_sick_absence_normalized_deviation

Summary:

  • The normalized (Z-Score) deviation from 1995 to 2019 trend in absence rates ranged between -2 to +2 from 1995 to 2020.

For the total full-time workers:

  • In 2021 the Z-Score was around 6;
  • In 2022 the Z-Score was about 12;
  • Absence rates have been increasing significantly from the previous 1995 to 2019 period;
  • Absence rates in 2021 and 2022 represent extreme increases.


Deviation from 1995 to 2019 trend for prime workers ages 25 to 49


Sick absence rates for prime workers - Deviation from trend, absolute and relative

Summary:

  • Absolute deviation from 1995 to 2019 trend in absence rate ranged between -20% to 20% from 1995 to 2019 for prime age workers. From 2021, we see an increased deviation from trend in each consecutive year;
  • In 2022, the deviation from trend was over 0.855% in absolute terms;
  • In relative terms, the deviation from trend in 2022, for the total full-time workers was about 65%.
plot_sick_absence_absolute_deviation_prime_workers
plot_sick_absence_relative_deviation_prime_workers

Sick absence rates prime workers - Normalized deviation from trend, Z-Score


plot_sick_absence_normalized_deviation_prime_workers

Summary:

  • The normalized (Z-Score) deviation from 1995 to 2019 trend in sick absence rates ranged between -2 to +2 from 1995 to 2019.

For the total full-time workers:

  • In 2021 the Z-Score was around 6;
  • In 2022 the Z-Score was about 12;
  • Sick absence rates have been increasing significantly from the previous 1995 to 2019 period;
  • Sick absence rates in 2021 and 2022 represent extreme increases.


Conclusions

  • Sickness Absence rates considerably increased in 2021 and 2022, reversing improvements in workers’ health and sending the metrics back to ~2005;
  • The largest rise in absence rates was in 2022 vs. 2021, highlighting the acceleration of the problems;
  • The increases were similar for the most part for both men and women, as well as workers in various age groups;
  • Minor illnesses, COVID-19, and respiratory conditions were the main drivers of the increase in sick absences;
  • Similar findings for lost worktime rates;
  • The findings are mostly similar to those we found in the US absence rates analysis, except that 2020 absence rates in the UK were lower than 2019, whereas in the US rates increased.


Observations

  • We observe that the rise in absence and lost worktime rates in the UK follow a very similar pattern as for the US. When framing the results above in the context of the V-Damage project for the US, we come to the conclusion that the most likely cause for the rise in absence levels was the impact of the mass Covid-19 vaccinations. Not only did the Covid-19 vaccines cause a degradation of individuals' immune systems that led to higher rates of illness and injury, as did the rise in disabilities in the US since early 2021, which we've shown to be related to the mass vaccination campaign (here and here) lead to higher absence rates. We are currently performing an equivalent analysis of the rise in disabilities post-2021 for the UK, which should further corroborate the these conclusions.

  • By finding very similar rises in absence rates in the US and the UK makes us believe that there are common factors at play that are independent of cultural or geographical differences between the countries. For instance the rise in fentanil use in the US is not affecting the UK population as much, and therefore is not a likely explanation for the rise in absence rates.

  • Our current analysis is based upon yearly data and therefore we cannot acertain if the rise in absence rates follows a seasonal pattern, related to influenza, colds, Covid-19, and other respiratory ilnesses with higher incidence in the winter months. We have made a request to the ONS to have access to quarterly data which would allow us to have more detail in the analysis.

  • Even though we believe that the Covid-19 inoculations play a major role, we must also consider that other factors might be leading to the rise in absence rates, namely, Covid-19, the impact of the pandemic lockdowns, the low unemployment rates in 2021 and 2022 that place extra pressure on currently employed individuals, and other factors.


Next Steps

  • Obtain quarterly data from ONS to determine more granular trend;
  • Compute impact in economic activity