UK sicknote crisis deepens: Shocking 82 per cent of 2.75 million incapacity benefit claimants have spent at least TWO YEARS off work

More than four out of five people claiming incapacity benefit have not worked for the past two years, according to analysis highlighting Britain’s sicknote crisis.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the figures illustrate the challenge facing the Government as it aims to move more people back into work and boost growth.

It came as separate official figures showed the number of people off work due to long-term sickness has fallen slightly to 2.75 million, the lowest level in nearly a year, although it remains close to record highs.

The IFS said moving more incapacity benefit claimants back into work was an ‘understandable aim’ after their number increased by 28 per cent to 3.2 million since 2019.

The IFS figures showed that just 5.1 per cent of incapacity benefit claimants were working while 82.9 per cent have not worked in the past two years.

More than four out of five people claiming incapacity benefit have not worked for the past two years, according to analysis

Britain has been suffering its longest-running sick note epidemic for a quarter of a century with the youngest and oldest workers driving the trend, ­recent analysis shows

‘The longer someone is out of work, the less likely they are to transition back into work,’ the report said.

It also said that 83 per cent of the claimants were signed off with ‘the most severe level of incapacity’, meaning they are ‘likely to be a long way from re-entering the labour market’.

Eduin Latimer at the IFS said: ‘There are unlikely to be easy solutions to the rising share of the population out of work due to ill health.’  

The news comes after a previous report found worklessness due to long-term sickness has soared six-fold in parts of Britain since pre-Covid.

In July, those languishing at home with an illness hit a high of 2.8million, up by around 700,000 before the pandemic rocked the country.

Spiralling rates of mental ill health has driven the ‘economic inactivity crisis’, which Labour has promised to tackle as part of its plans to give the economy a boost and save taxpayers billions on welfare hand-outs. 

Shockingly, young people are now just as likely to be out of work because of long-term illness as people in their 40s, according to the Resolution Foundation.

MailOnline analysis of official statistics shows more than 14 per cent of the working age population of Dover are now estimated to be ‘economically inactive’ because of a long-term illness, or 9,700 people.

For comparison, the figure was nearly 2.5 per cent in 2019-20.

And earlier this year it was revealed that soaring workplace illness is costing UK firms an extra £30billion a year with days off sick doubling since 2018, a report reveals.

Employees now phone in sick an average of 6.7 days a year, which is up from 3.7 days six years ago.

This means the annual cost of staff absence has increased by £5 billion over this period, analysis by the Institute for Public Policy Research revealed.  

However, the biggest cost to business comes from ‘presenteeism’, when Britons turn up to work despite being unwell and unable to give their best, the think tanks claims.

Its report says a typical employee now loses the equivalent of 44 days productivity a year due to working through sickness. 

This is up from 35 days since 2018, with the additional slack days hitting profits by £25billion a year, researchers found. 

IFS data also revealed a 150 per cent increase in new disability claims by the under 40s in the past four years – and a sharp rise in the number of benefit applications on mental health grounds.

The research highlighted how benefit claims are going up at a much faster rate in Britain than elsewhere – even though other comparable countries have also seen an increase in reported disability cases.