Sick leave in private sector stabilising

In 2001 sick leave in the private sector was 6.1 percent on average. This means that every day one in every sixteen employees in private companies reports in sick. The level is about the same as in 2000. It would seem that absence through sickness is stabilising after three successive years of growth.

Sick leave in the private sector (yearly average)

Sick leave in the care sector decreasing

At 8.0 percent sick leave was highest in the non-profit care sector in 2001. The rate in this sector was pushed up by the 8.9 percent in health care and welfare sector. However, it was down on the 2000 rate of 9.3 percent.

Sick leave in the private sector by sector of industry (yearly average)

Again, the lowest numbers of people reporting in sick are in agriculture: 3.7 percent in 2001. Sick leave also fell substantially in this sector in 2001. On average only one in 27 employees per day report in sick in this sector. In the health care and welfare sector this was one in eleven.

Sick leave falling in large companies

Employee absence in large companies was 8.0 percent on average in 2001, slightly down on the 8.1 percent of the previous year. Sick leave in medium-sized enterprises, on the other hand, increased, from 5.1 percent in 2000 to 5.2 percent in 2001. For companies with fewer than ten employees sick leave was at the same low level it has been since 1999, namely 3.3 percent.

John Kartopawiro