Long Covid Is Keeping Significant Numbers of People Out of Work, Study Finds

An analysis of workers compensation claims in New York found that 71 percent of claimants with long Covid needed continuing medical treatment or were unable to work for six months or more.

Long Covid is having a significant effect on Americas work force, preventing substantial numbers of people from going back to work while others continue needing medical care long after returning to their jobs, according to a new analysis of workers compensation claims in New York State.

The study, published Tuesday by New Yorks largest workers compensation insurer, found that during the first two years of the pandemic, about 71 percent of people the fund classified as experiencing long Covid either required continuing medical treatment or were unable to work for six months or more. More than a year after contracting the coronavirus, 18 percent of long Covid patients had still not returned to work, more than three-fourths of them younger than 60, the analysis found.

Long Covid has harmed the work force, said the report, by the New York State Insurance Fund, a state agency financed by employer-paid premiums. The findings, it added, highlight long Covid as an underappreciated yet important reason for the many unfilled jobs and declining labor participation rate in the economy, and they presage a possible reduction in productivity as employers feel the strains of an increasingly sick work force.