About the event

This policy event brings together Members of the European Parliament, the scientific community, and people living with chronic pain to examine one of the most under-recognised pressures on Europe's economy: the cost of pain in working life. In every Member State, chronic pain drives early retirement, sickness absence, and reduced productivity, yet it remains largely absent from EU employment and economic policy.

As the European Commission advances its competitiveness agenda, the Quality Jobs Act offers a timely opportunity to address occupational health. Against this backdrop, the event will disseminate the SIP Platform's Joint Statement on Employment and the Economic Considerations of Pain, the platform's theme for 2026, and set out how EU and national policymakers can help people living with pain to remain in, or return to, work.

This is a call to action: to recognise chronic pain as both a public health priority and a labour market and competitiveness challenge, and to act on the evidence. At a time of labour shortages and demographic pressure, supporting people living with pain to participate fully in working life is not only a health goal but an economic necessity.