A little air in the workplace: absenteeism due to illness has been halved

This is apparent from figures from occupational health and safety services ArboNed and HumanCapitalCare. The flu seems to be on its way back, and the number of sick reports due to corona is also decreasing. This combination resulted in almost half the number of sick people in April.

In March, the number of sick calls reached an all-time high after months of rise: 11 out of every 100 workers. Now, for the first time this year, there has been a decline, and immediately a solid one.

More sick than before corona

On average, absenteeism remains higher than before the corona pandemic: 4.8 percent versus 4.3 percent in 2019. According to company doctor Jurriaan Penders of HumanCapitalCare, this is due to the severe flu wave that has passed, and also to the group of people who have been on long-term illness. dropped out due to lung covid complaints.

“Almost 95 percent of employees are back to work within twelve weeks after a corona infection. That is not feasible for a small group of workers with lung covid,” he explains. More than a quarter of them are still not working after a year.

Working from home against illness

Higher absenteeism due to illness remains a concern for many employers, who are already struggling with a shortage of staff. Never before has the labor market been as tight as it is now. This creates problems that cause disruption or even disruption of society, professor of the labor market Ton Wilthagen told RTL Z earlier this week. Think of NS that has to run fewer trains due to a shortage of people, and the Kethel tunnel near Rotterdam that was closed. .

Penders’ advice to employers is to take extra good care of your staff in times of labor market tightness. One of the things he believes works is to continue to encourage working from home. “So that employees have to travel less and can organize their time themselves. Take a critical look at the work that really has to be done now and postpone what can be done to prevent unnecessary psychological and physical overload.”