IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v30y2023i18p2510-2514.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The impact of Long COVID on the UK workforce

Author

Listed:
  • Darja Reuschke
  • Donald Houston

Abstract

COVID-19 is more likely to lead to Long COVID among persons of working age. We outline the first estimates of the impact of Long Covid on employment in the UK. Using estimates of cumulative prevalence of Long COVID, activity-limiting Long COVID in the working-age population and of economic inactivity and job loss resulting from Long COVID, we provide evidence of the profound impact of Long COVID on national labour supply. Since the start of the pandemic, cumulatively 2.9 million people of working age (7% of the total) in the UK have had, or still have, Long COVID. This figure will continue to rise due to very high infection rates in the Omicron wave. Since the beginning of the pandemic, economic inactivity due to long-term sickness has risen by 120,900 among the working-age population, fuelling the UK’s current labour shortage. An estimated 80,000 people have left employment due to Long COVID. We argue that governments need to tackle the twin challenges to public health and labour supply and provide employment protection and financial support for individuals and firms affected by Long COVID.

Suggested Citation

  • Darja Reuschke & Donald Houston, 2023. "The impact of Long COVID on the UK workforce," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(18), pages 2510-2514, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:30:y:2023:i:18:p:2510-2514
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2022.2098239
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13504851.2022.2098239
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13504851.2022.2098239?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:30:y:2023:i:18:p:2510-2514. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.