Studies
View studies from around the world that focus on healthier living and better health initiatives. We’ll be adding more studies here from time to time to help keep you informed.
Fit for Work Report Europe
A healthy workforce means a healthy economy. Yet conventional measures to improve productivity, from investment in skills, technology and innovation to labour market deregulation, fail to take account of one of the most serious barriers to growing prosperity: poor workforce health. Despite relative prosperity in Europe, we must face up to the fact that the European workforce may not be healthy enough to drive the improvements in productivity required to ensure that Europe can compete with the USA and China. Indeed, in a post-recession Europe, poor worker well-being may represent a serious impediment to economic growth and competitiveness.
Having a significant proportion of Europe’s working age population either temporarily or permanently unable to work through ill-health – even in a favourable economic climate – can reduce the aggregate level of labour productivity in an economy and damage the competitiveness and effectiveness of private and public sector organisations. In depressed labour markets, there is a heightened risk that those with long-term or chronic health conditions will find themselves detached from the workplace for long periods, with little prospect of returning quickly.
To see the whole report, click the image on the right for download.
