This was a fall of 26% since 1993 (when 178 million days were lost) despite an increase in total employment from around 25 million people to about 29 million people. The amount of time lost per worker was four and a half days in 2011 down from just over seven days in 1993.
The number of working days lost through sickness remained roughly constant through the 1990s until 2003 and has fallen since then. The percentage of total hours lost fell from 2.8% in 1993 to 1.8% in 2011.
The reason the number of days lost remained constant between 1993 and 2003, when the percentage of hours lost were falling over this period, was because there were more people entering employment during this time.
The most common reason given for sickness in 2011 was minor illnesses such as coughs, colds and flu. This type of illness tends to have short durations and the greatest number of working days lost was actually due to musculoskeletal problems (34.4 million days). This includes symptoms such as back, neck and upper limb problems.
About 27.5 million days were lost due to minor illnesses, such as coughs and colds, and 13.1 million days were lost to stress, depression and anxiety.
Women have consistently higher sickness absence rates than men but both sexes have seen a fall over the past 20 years. Men have gone from losing around 2.5% of their hours due to sickness in 1993 to around 1.5% in 2011. Over the same period women have seen a reduction in hours lost from 3.3% to 2.3%.
Self-employed people took less absence than employees (in 2011, 1.2% of hours and 1.9% of working hours lost respectively).
Self-employed people do not generally have the same sick-leave cover as employees and would therefore have more incentive to make up any hours lost due to sickness. Also self-employed individuals are more likely to lose out financially if they lose working hours.
Workers in London had the lowest percentage of hours lost to sickness, at 1.3% in 2011. The highest percentage lost was in the North East and Wales, both at 2.5%. The London workforce is younger on average, has a high proportion of self-employed people and private sector workers.
These characteristics are associated with below-average sickness absence rates. Wales and the North East on the other hand have on average an older workforce with above-average proportions of public sector workers, and the
North East has by far the highest proportion of employees. These characteristics are associated with higher than average sickness absence rates.
People are generally more likely to develop health problems at older ages, and sickness absence rates also increase with age. For workers aged 16 to 34, around 1.5% of hours were lost to sickness in 2011 compared with 2.5% for workers aged 50 to 64.
Workers aged 65 or over lost a lower percentage of hours to sickness because those with health problems are more likely to have left the labour market.
The percentage of hours lost to sickness in the private sector is lower than in the public sector, at 1.6% and 2.6% respectively.
