If the data on medical leave due to illness, accident or disability is analyzed, Spain seems to be still immersed in the covid pandemic. The percentage of workers on sick leave compared to the total number of employees remains at around 4%, the figure it reached with the pandemic, from previous levels of around 2.5%. Today, months after the covid crisis ended, the rate has not decreased again, according to EPA data.
Funcas senior analyst, María Jesús Fernández, points out that there is no clear explanation that justifies this situation. However, in their view, the consequences of this phenomenon are evident: a reduction in the average number of hours worked per employee that has not been corrected over the different quarters.
Sources from the CEOE employers’ association point out that “we have long been aware of the increase in temporary disability derived from common contingencies and that is why we asked in the last national agreement on agreements (AENC) that measures be put in place to correct it.”
The Ministry of Social Security, headed by Elma Saiz, states that “this issue concerns and occupies us and we are aligned with the objective of correcting the overload of public health services and making the recovery of workers effective and more agile.”
The Ministry adds that “we are working along the lines set by the AENC, which encourages the development of agreements with mutual insurance companies aimed at carrying out diagnostic tests and therapeutic and rehabilitative treatments in temporary disability processes due to common contingencies of traumatological origin.”
In fact, absenteeism was one of the topics discussed at last Monday’s meeting between the Secretary of State for Social Security and Pensions, Borja Suárez, and the social agents.
Sources from the CEOE believe that “one of the problems is in the management of primary healthcare, which, being collapsed, causes sick leave to last longer than it should because common contingencies are not treated in time.” Patricia Ruiz, confederal secretary of UGT, adds that “the waiting lists are enormous” and also points out the problem of “non-mental health care.”
The union representative points out that there are hardly any means to treat pathologies such as anxiety or depression, which lengthens medical leave. But there are more causes. Luis Zarapuz, coordinator of the economic cabinet of Comisiones Obreras, reflects that the 2008-2013 crisis caused that “due to the fear of losing their jobs in those years, the most precarious workers did not take the sick leave to which they were entitled and went to work. sick”.
According to Zarapuz, “with the economic recovery and the strong creation of higher quality employment, there has been a step jump in dismissals.” The CC.OO economist. insists that when the focus is opened and the data prior to the 2008 crisis is analyzed, the percentage of casualties was around 3%, above the levels prior to the covid pandemic.
Some employers also defend that the increase in sick leave has occurred in parallel with the increase in agreements in which benefits are complemented when an employee is temporarily disabled. In this way, since there is no loss of salary, there is no incentive to accelerate the return to work, they explain.
Patricia Ruiz from UGT recalls that medical leave is given by health professionals, which is why she denies that cheating can be done with temporary disabilities.
The wounds that the pandemic has left in society could also be behind this high volume of casualties, since it is common to what occurs in other European countries, says María Jesús Fernández. Now, some workers avoid infecting their colleagues and perhaps request sick leave to be absent from the workplace to a greater extent than was done in the past.
The questioning of the functioning of primary health services occurs in parallel with the debate opened by the Ministry of Health on the possibility that workers could process a three-day “self-discharge” as a way to reduce the collapse of the system. Patricia Ruiz says that “we are not in disagreement, but a negotiation is needed within the framework of social dialogue.”
On the other hand, employers are against it precisely because they have not been consulted. The president of the CEOE, Antonio Garamendi, even asked that the State be the one to assume the cost of these extra casualties.
