Absenteeism due to illness among Dutch employees amounted to 6.3 percent in the first quarter of 2022, the highest percentage in the Netherlands. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) has ever measured† The statistics agency announced this on Friday. In the same period a year earlier, it was 4.8 percent.
In 2022 it was mainly employees in the health and welfare sector who often called in sick: 8.9 percent. That is, out of a thousand days to work, 89 days were absent due to illness. A year earlier, it was 6.8 percent in the first quarter. Absenteeism was lowest in financial services at 3.4 percent. The figures from Statistics Netherlands also show that absenteeism due to illness is increasing in the hospitality industry, an industry where it has always been low. At the beginning of 2022 it was 6 percent, a year earlier it was 3.9 percent.
Survey
Statistics Netherlands determines the figures on absenteeism through illness on the basis of a survey among companies. It does not ask why employees have called in sick. This is being investigated in the National Working Conditions Survey (NEA) which Statistics Netherlands carries out once a year with TNO and which was published this week. By 2021, 8 percent of all 50,000 employees between the ages of 15 and 75 surveyed said they had tested positive for the coronavirus.
The main reason for employees to call in sick is a cold or flu. In 2021 this was 30 percent of the employees, according to the NEA. This was followed by psychological complaints, overstrain and burnout.