How are long-COVID sufferers coping with work?
Workers with long-COVID are taking medical leave, burning through PTO and missing out on key promotional opportunities.
Even as the pandemic appears to be easing, many companies are finding that COVID is a marathon, not a sprint. More than 100 million people worldwide have suffered from long COVID, in which symptoms linger for weeks or even months. As a result, U.S. workers have seen a 13% reduction in weekly work hours, and nearly three in four have had to take medical leave.
Power, a San Francisco-based clinical research company, recently surveyed a thousand workers with long COVID to better understand its impact on job performance. Among the findings:
Nearly two-thirds of surveyed workers believe long COVID is worsening the country’s labor shortage. Around 1.6 million Americans may be missing from the workforce because of their battles with long COVID. More than four in 10 respondents had experienced long-term symptoms themselves; just less than half have not had to deal with it; and 8.4% are unsure about whether they had long COVID.
Many have had to use vacation days to rest and get better. These people likely were part of the respondent group that used all of their sick days and had no choice but to take more time off. Some who still were working at the very least had to reduce their hours, while others were thinking of quitting their job altogether. Nearly 30% saw no other option but to do just that. Gen Zers were the most likely to have given their two-week notice.
People who experienced long COVID lost an average of $4,308 from a missed promotion or salary increase. Thirty-five percent of respondents said long COVID symptoms had negatively affected their productivity at work, and some unforgiving bosses may have punished them financially. Although people’s financial health took a hit, so did their physical and mental health. A laundry list of long COVID symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, sleep problems, fever and mood changes, might explain why it took a toll on many respondents’ bodies and minds.
Seventy percent of workers who experienced long COVID applied for disability protection and benefits. One in eight had their application denied. Under the joint guidance of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Justice, long COVID is not automatically given disability status and instead is assessed on an individual basis, which likely explains why some were granted neither disability protection nor benefits.
“As we learned, some long COVID sufferers weren’t given any sort of breaks at their workplace, as some were hindered financially due to their dip in productivity or general absence,” the survey report concluded. “To follow up, when directly asked about their workplaces, only 55% of workers said that they and others who had COVID symptoms were being accommodated accordingly.
“For the ones who work at companies that put an emphasis on employee well-being, potential reasonable accommodations include a job restructure, making changes to an employee’s workstation, permitting an employee to work from home or modifying their work schedule.”
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