Carers UK has published new research ‘Supporting carers at work: opportunity and imperative’ which showed that whilst some employers were more supportive of carers within their workplace, a significant proportion of carers were at risk of reducing their working hours or giving up work altogether if they did not get the right support measures in place.
The results also show how tough continuing to juggle work and providing unpaid care can be. Three quarters (72%) of working carers were worrying about continuing to juggle work and care and 77% felt tired at work because of the demands of their unpaid caring role. Six out of ten had given up opportunities at work because of their caring responsibilities.
34% of working carers said that their employer had become much more understanding of caring during the pandemic and half (51%) said that their line manager understood caring well and was supportive. Around half (52%) said they had benefited from more flexible working in the workplace. However, one quarter (24%) said their employer was not understanding of caring.
Juggling work and unpaid care was already a challenge pre-pandemic, with an estimated 600 people a day giving up work to care. This has costs for carers’ finances in the short and longer term, but it also has an impact on business productivity pre-pandemic with an estimated £8.2 billion which could be gained economically by more supportive working practices.
With the pandemic, a staggering 2.8 million workers became unpaid carers virtually overnight. This took the level of caring from an estimated one in seven workers pre-pandemic to one in five. The government has pledged to introduce up to one week of unpaid Carer’s Leave and is currently consulting on day one rights to request flexible working.
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