SHORT-TERM ABSENTEEISM PEAKED IN JANUARY

HR Square reports that more than half of the employees were more often briefly absent due to illness in January 2022 than in the same month in 2019. Compared to January 2021, this was almost 80 % more. The culprit: omicron.

The number of short-term absenteeism due to illness was 51.2 % higher in January this year than in January 2019 (3.88 % vs. 2.56 %). Compared to January 2021, we are even talking about almost 80 % more. Thanks to the lockdown, short-term absenteeism due to illness was much lower at the time (2.2 %), calculated HR service provider Securex.

Traditionally, short absenteeism due to illness is lower every year in December than in October and November, after which it rises again in January: the holiday periods may play a role in this. This was also the case in December 2021, but the number of short absences was already significantly higher than in the same month of the historically low year 2020 (+61 %) and of the ‘normal’ year 2019 (+18.5 %).

In January 2022, there was a 44.5 % increase in the number of short-term absences compared to the previous month of December 2021. By way of comparison, in January 2020 the increase was 20.5 % compared to December 2019.

Clerks and workers

Although white-collar workers were obliged to work from home four days a week during the past period, if their job allowed it, Securex also noted a strong increase in the number of short absences in the past month of January. There was a 49 % increase in white-collar workers compared to December 2021; among workers 44 %.

Finally, blue-collar workers were significantly more affected by short-term absenteeism than white-collar workers (4.9 percent and 3.2 percent short-term absenteeism, respectively in January 2022). Compared to the corona-free January 2019, Securex records an increase of 62.8 percent among blue-collar workers and an increase of 45 percent among white-collar workers.

Please visit https://hrsquare.be/nl/nieuws/kort-verzuim-piekte-in-januari for the original post in Dutch.