We’ve talked about sick pay before in this column, unsurprisingly, given that a pandemic means lots of ill workers. But while we’ve needed those with Covid to stay at home, it’s been hard, thanks to the lowest statutory sick pay in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which protects only a quarter of our earnings on average.
It’s worth asking why overall sick pay levels are so bad. Firms and workers have the option of negotiating employer-provided sick pay beyond the legal minimum. Many do, but two-fifths of workers in caring, leisure and service jobs rely on the statutory minimum.
New research helps us understand why we have a problem. Surveying more than 12,000 UK residents, it found that workers who come into more contact with others are least likely to have sick pay and most likely to work when ill.
We know some firms are reluctant to offer sick pay because of the challenge of verifying whether workers are really ill. But workers also don’t prioritise sick pay, with almost half unwilling to sacrifice 2% of pay for it. That makes some sense for individuals prepared to work while sick but it’s rubbish for society: everyone else bears the cost if I turn up to work with the flu. Our sick sick pay system isn’t going to resolve itself because it’s one big market failure. The blindingly obvious answer? The state has to step in.