About 16 million Americans of working age have long Covid, and up to 4 million are out of work as a result, according to a report. Long Covid is affecting employment in other countries too: the Bank of England recently attributed the workforce shrinking by 440,000 largely to “increases in long-term sickness”.www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/25/long-covid-americans-workforce-brookings-report?
But many workers are not being supported. In the US, more than 25% of private sector workers do not have any form of paid sick leave, and some people have reported being fired for taking sick leave. The report’s authors estimate there are 10.6m unfilled jobs. The report estimates the dollar amount of the lost wages is between $170bn and $230bn a year.
