Workers' experience of Long Covid

The TUC and Long Covid Work conducted a self-selecting online survey. The survey was open from 14 September to 1 November 2022 and was promoted on social media, through affiliated unions and Long Covid support groups. We received 3,373 responses from people who self-reported they had Covid-19 and of these, 3,097 reported they had Long Covid. The analysis in this report is of respondents who reported they had Long Covid.

• 56 per cent of respondents with Long Covid are in full-time employment, 24 per cent in part time employment and eight per cent are unemployed.
• Eight per cent identified as BME and 90 per cent as White.
• 76 per cent of respondents are women, 21 per cent men and one per cent non-binary.
• Less than one per cent of respondents identified as trans and 98 per cent did not identify as trans.
• 35 per cent identified as disabled and 59 per cent did not identify as disabled.
• Nine per cent of respondents identified as lesbian, gay or bi and 83 per cent identified as heterosexual.
• 15 per cent of respondents are under the age of 35, 83 per cent between the ages of 36 and 65 and just under 2 per cent over the age of 65.
• The majority of respondents worked in education (33 per cent) or health and social work (28 per cent) and 64 per cent said they were a key worker.
• 45 per cent of respondents had caring responsibilities, of which 6 per cent cared for someone with Long Covid.
• The regions with the largest responses were as follows. 28 per cent of respondents were from London and the South East, 13 per cent were from Scotland and 12 per cent from the North West.

One limitation of this data set is the low levels of responses from certain sectors where we know Covid-19 infection was high; for example, transport (1 per cent of respondents) and retail (2.5 per cent of respondents). There was also a low response rate from self-employed people (3 per cent) or respondents on zero hours contracts (1 per cent).