Mental-health days, bad colds, fog in the head: Many people take a sick day or two when they feel under the weather. But over the past few years, things have changed dramatically. Sickness has caused a record 2.8 million British people aged 16 to 64 to drop out of the UK workforce, according to recent research from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Before 2020, the total had hovered around 2 million, never exceeding 2.4 million, going all the way back to the 1990s.
