‘The labour force survey does not provide figures on the proportion of participants out of work due to long Covid. The most recent figures, from a separate ONS analysis, estimated that 93,000 people aged between 16 and 34 were economically inactive with self-reported long Covid in July 2022.’
And yet they stopped tracking this. That number is almost certainly much higher now.
I know people here won’t have a bar of it, but I think a lot of folk knew at least someone who is like 32, never worked a day due to something like depression or other shit like that
As a higher taxpayer… it’s frustrating, not only that my bands a frozen to bail these folk out, but that even if my taxes were to stay high, it could be on infrastructure or education instead of welfare for *that* type we all know.
Even if it’s only a small share, there’s still marginal gains to be won here. ADHD should not get you PIP. Getting these folk into work boosts productive capacity and reduces state expenditure to go elsewhere to higher return investment.
In my experience this is a combination of factors. I’m currently unemployed after a decade in academia and well qualified. However I was forced to resign earlier in the year as a result of chronic understaffing, and a complete lack of empathy and understanding from my employers that this was making my health worse. I worked despite having multiple long term physical health issues. I was working 50+ hour weeks (contracted to 35) and was not able to keep my head above water. That was a failure of senior management, not because I wasn’t able to do the job.
I now fear that this will be the same wherever I go, which may or may not be true. Until places actually value their staff, have acceptable working conditions and mean services aren’t run on a shoestring I can’t see this changing. Looking to find something new next year and hope that disability friendly employers aren’t just a meaningless label on a website to look inclusive.
The number of people in the UK of working age not working and the productivity level of the UK should be scaring everyone, the UK is broke, with far too many dependents and far too few contributors, and much of it can be traced back to the lack of investment over the past 15 years, all these compounds issues and will lead to the further dissolution of the nation further falling in every comparable metric against every other g7 country.
50% of our staff in our NHS department have been off in the last 12 months with mental health issues due to work related stress
I think the general increase is due to workplaces and society being more accepting of mental health issues. Its not as much of a stigma it once was
I lost my health at 23 due to a botched medical procedure. I’m in work but only able to do 3 days a week max, realistically. Few people have an appreciation for how fragile our health is and how you don’t have to do something wrong to become disabled
Personally I think it’s due to chronic underinvestment and low productivity. Underinvestment from successive governments hell bent on austerity. Cheap money fuelling private equity backed short term corporate strategies.
Everything is run on a shoestring these days, and most people seem unhappy with their work. I guess the shake up of the pandemic probably didn’t help either.
Its big business these days, there is legal firms that will fill in all your paperwork and deal with the appeals for a fee
Undue stress is utterly unacceptable in the workplace and youngsters are understandably refusing to put up with it. Employers need to drastically change or they’ll pay the price for their selfishness.
Its almost like nearly 15 years of austerity, cutting key services, underfunding the NHS, low wage growth, low wages compared to other leading countries for the same work, ludicrous rent prices, no landlord accountability for housing quality (black mold paradise), lack of workplace training, lack of accredited professional development, lack of disability accommodations and reasonable adjustments, unaffordable housing to buy, no possibility to have kids, record highs of poverty, record highs of debt, record highs of homelessness, record highs of foodbank reliance, constant pressure to perform to ever increasing KPIs, increased responsibilities without promotion, firing to hire someone else who will do the same work for slave wages, limited career progression, 0 hour contracts, understaffing, high cost of food, high cost of energy, landlords leeching money out of the country to tax-free havens like Dubai, massive conglomerates not paying taxes, a 1% that is more wealthy than ever in history (i’m not talking about people on 100k salaries, I’m talking BILLIONAIRES), the inability do something as simple as turn the heating on, and heightened awareness of mental health without services to address those needs… Just MIGHT… MMIGGGHHT affect folks’ wellbeing and capacity to do 40+ hours of high stress work each week.
But you know, maybe its them damn foreigners, or, or disabled people… OR MAYBE THE TRANS PEOPLE!! (/s)
I can imagine mental health being a big problem here. I’ve recently struggled with my mental health now that cost of living has become a real problem on everyday life. My health deteriorated because i was going to work for what? Pay the essential bills and life off nothing? Some days i feel like goin to work has no reward anymore once you paid off the essential bills
Maybe because NHS wait lists are years long and people’s health conditions needlessly deteriorate, go unchecked and turn chronic.
If employers actually provided some degree of flexibility, and the government or employers actually provided decent sick pay, then many many more chronically ill people would actually be able to work.
But because too many employers are still chained to this idea of 8 hours a day, being in the office and having zero flexibility, and we have a country where sick pay is so incredibly low (and sick policies are often punishments rather than actual ways to help people work around chronic illnesses), then this is where we are at.
Just look at our average salaries. It’s so close to minimum wage it’s actually a joke.
I bet half of those at least *could* actually work, they’ve just been mentally broken by a system that wants to see them work 40 hours a week for a salary that can’t even support one person, when they can just not work and have the same deprived lifestyle.
Minimum wage is supposed to be a salary for teenagers living with parents with little to no living expenses, not the backbone of the labour force. We need to tempt people into work, not beat them off of welfare.
It’s almost as if there’s a link between destroying the healthcare system, destroying workers rights, the economy and the people on long term sick.
My brother is one of them.
Some joint issue that doctors cant figure out. First picked up when he was rejected by the Royal Marines medical 10 years back. After a decade working as a building custodian mobility worsened and he is now retraining as a driving instructor. That does take time though.
Worth considering for anyone in a similar position, there is such a shortage that the bigger driving schools are desperate to train people.
Whatever the causes and solutions, that is a staggeringly high number.
That’s what happens when you grind people to nothing, and alongside that, completely destroy the NHS.
Some here will make up excuses but give me a stat on how many of these have been on the dole 6 months+.
Idleitus.
In terms of health reasons I now get fucked at least 3 times a year for chest infections since covid (though I was always prone). It is way worse now.
Im now suffering a real bad dose of chest infection just hopefully over the hump on Xmas eve which at points with all the chest crackling I thought was pneumonia. Not that I can see a doctor on the NHS
So much of this is to do with poverty, poor wages, lack of childcare, inequality and austerity. Being disabled is so draining and expensive. You are just expected to get on with it with very little care and fuck all money. The way health, social care and benefits work here it’s so hard if you’re socially isolated and chronically ill to ever move beyond barely surviving, there’s no support to have a decent quality of life which could lead someone back to work
Have a day off COVID nonsense mate, enjoy Xmas with your friends and family.
22 comments
‘The labour force survey does not provide figures on the proportion of participants out of work due to long Covid. The most recent figures, from a separate ONS analysis, estimated that 93,000 people aged between 16 and 34 were economically inactive with self-reported long Covid in July 2022.’
And yet they stopped tracking this. That number is almost certainly much higher now.
I know people here won’t have a bar of it, but I think a lot of folk knew at least someone who is like 32, never worked a day due to something like depression or other shit like that
As a higher taxpayer… it’s frustrating, not only that my bands a frozen to bail these folk out, but that even if my taxes were to stay high, it could be on infrastructure or education instead of welfare for *that* type we all know.
Even if it’s only a small share, there’s still marginal gains to be won here. ADHD should not get you PIP. Getting these folk into work boosts productive capacity and reduces state expenditure to go elsewhere to higher return investment.
In my experience this is a combination of factors. I’m currently unemployed after a decade in academia and well qualified. However I was forced to resign earlier in the year as a result of chronic understaffing, and a complete lack of empathy and understanding from my employers that this was making my health worse. I worked despite having multiple long term physical health issues. I was working 50+ hour weeks (contracted to 35) and was not able to keep my head above water. That was a failure of senior management, not because I wasn’t able to do the job.
I now fear that this will be the same wherever I go, which may or may not be true. Until places actually value their staff, have acceptable working conditions and mean services aren’t run on a shoestring I can’t see this changing. Looking to find something new next year and hope that disability friendly employers aren’t just a meaningless label on a website to look inclusive.
The number of people in the UK of working age not working and the productivity level of the UK should be scaring everyone, the UK is broke, with far too many dependents and far too few contributors, and much of it can be traced back to the lack of investment over the past 15 years, all these compounds issues and will lead to the further dissolution of the nation further falling in every comparable metric against every other g7 country.
50% of our staff in our NHS department have been off in the last 12 months with mental health issues due to work related stress
I think the general increase is due to workplaces and society being more accepting of mental health issues. Its not as much of a stigma it once was
I lost my health at 23 due to a botched medical procedure. I’m in work but only able to do 3 days a week max, realistically. Few people have an appreciation for how fragile our health is and how you don’t have to do something wrong to become disabled
Personally I think it’s due to chronic underinvestment and low productivity. Underinvestment from successive governments hell bent on austerity. Cheap money fuelling private equity backed short term corporate strategies.
Everything is run on a shoestring these days, and most people seem unhappy with their work. I guess the shake up of the pandemic probably didn’t help either.
Its big business these days, there is legal firms that will fill in all your paperwork and deal with the appeals for a fee
Undue stress is utterly unacceptable in the workplace and youngsters are understandably refusing to put up with it. Employers need to drastically change or they’ll pay the price for their selfishness.
Its almost like nearly 15 years of austerity, cutting key services, underfunding the NHS, low wage growth, low wages compared to other leading countries for the same work, ludicrous rent prices, no landlord accountability for housing quality (black mold paradise), lack of workplace training, lack of accredited professional development, lack of disability accommodations and reasonable adjustments, unaffordable housing to buy, no possibility to have kids, record highs of poverty, record highs of debt, record highs of homelessness, record highs of foodbank reliance, constant pressure to perform to ever increasing KPIs, increased responsibilities without promotion, firing to hire someone else who will do the same work for slave wages, limited career progression, 0 hour contracts, understaffing, high cost of food, high cost of energy, landlords leeching money out of the country to tax-free havens like Dubai, massive conglomerates not paying taxes, a 1% that is more wealthy than ever in history (i’m not talking about people on 100k salaries, I’m talking BILLIONAIRES), the inability do something as simple as turn the heating on, and heightened awareness of mental health without services to address those needs… Just MIGHT… MMIGGGHHT affect folks’ wellbeing and capacity to do 40+ hours of high stress work each week.
But you know, maybe its them damn foreigners, or, or disabled people… OR MAYBE THE TRANS PEOPLE!! (/s)
I can imagine mental health being a big problem here. I’ve recently struggled with my mental health now that cost of living has become a real problem on everyday life. My health deteriorated because i was going to work for what? Pay the essential bills and life off nothing? Some days i feel like goin to work has no reward anymore once you paid off the essential bills
Maybe because NHS wait lists are years long and people’s health conditions needlessly deteriorate, go unchecked and turn chronic.
If employers actually provided some degree of flexibility, and the government or employers actually provided decent sick pay, then many many more chronically ill people would actually be able to work.
But because too many employers are still chained to this idea of 8 hours a day, being in the office and having zero flexibility, and we have a country where sick pay is so incredibly low (and sick policies are often punishments rather than actual ways to help people work around chronic illnesses), then this is where we are at.
Just look at our average salaries. It’s so close to minimum wage it’s actually a joke.
I bet half of those at least *could* actually work, they’ve just been mentally broken by a system that wants to see them work 40 hours a week for a salary that can’t even support one person, when they can just not work and have the same deprived lifestyle.
Minimum wage is supposed to be a salary for teenagers living with parents with little to no living expenses, not the backbone of the labour force. We need to tempt people into work, not beat them off of welfare.
It’s almost as if there’s a link between destroying the healthcare system, destroying workers rights, the economy and the people on long term sick.
My brother is one of them.
Some joint issue that doctors cant figure out. First picked up when he was rejected by the Royal Marines medical 10 years back. After a decade working as a building custodian mobility worsened and he is now retraining as a driving instructor. That does take time though.
Worth considering for anyone in a similar position, there is such a shortage that the bigger driving schools are desperate to train people.
Whatever the causes and solutions, that is a staggeringly high number.
That’s what happens when you grind people to nothing, and alongside that, completely destroy the NHS.
Some here will make up excuses but give me a stat on how many of these have been on the dole 6 months+.
Idleitus.
In terms of health reasons I now get fucked at least 3 times a year for chest infections since covid (though I was always prone). It is way worse now.
Im now suffering a real bad dose of chest infection just hopefully over the hump on Xmas eve which at points with all the chest crackling I thought was pneumonia. Not that I can see a doctor on the NHS
So much of this is to do with poverty, poor wages, lack of childcare, inequality and austerity. Being disabled is so draining and expensive. You are just expected to get on with it with very little care and fuck all money. The way health, social care and benefits work here it’s so hard if you’re socially isolated and chronically ill to ever move beyond barely surviving, there’s no support to have a decent quality of life which could lead someone back to work
Have a day off COVID nonsense mate, enjoy Xmas with your friends and family.