Night Shift Workers at Risk?

Almost two thirds (62%) of night workers are male, with women making up a third (38%) and the North West and Yorkshire have the highest rates of night-working, with one in nine people on night duty. According to the TUC night working is most common in the logistics, healthcare and security sectors. And it can surely be no coincidence that new figures from the GMB trade show that security guards in the UK have a life expectancy 20 years shorter than the national average.

For most people, the working day starts around sunrise and ends at sunset, but for those who work nights, it is the other way around. Figures published last year by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) show the number of people working night shifts in the UK has shot up by 260,000 in the past five years, which means around 3.2 million people regularly work in the wee small hours.

An official estimate completed for GMB by the Office for National Statistics shows the mean age of death of people aged 20 and over working in security professions is 61.9 years, compared to the national average, which is 81.4 years.