More older workers are leaving employment because of ill-health, but Covid-19 isn’t to blame, analysis has found.
A study by The Health Foundation found that the percentage of older employees who are inactive because of long-term health conditions had increased by just one percentage point this year, totalling 64 per cent compared to 63 per cent pre-pandemic.
From the start of the pandemic up to the second quarter of this year, the study found that 200,000 workers aged 59-69 had left employment because of ill-health. This marked the biggest contributor to the recent rise in economic inactivity for that age group, it reported.
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But despite older workers leaving work since the start of the pandemic, the analysis found that, by the beginning of 2020, 110,000 more older workers had already quit their jobs because of health issues than in 2014.
Idris Arshad, people and inclusion partner at St Christopher’s Hospice, said long Covid often exacerbated underlying health issues, and this would naturally make individuals re-evaluate.
“Being seriously affected by Covid and hospitalised may have made them think about their employment, but until there’s a survey specifically [for] this we don't know,” explained Arshad.
He added that organisations should know the importance of having “effective health and wellbeing strategies to support employees” and suggested that supportive sickness management procedures...
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