Umbrella company contractors may be interested to learn that the latest ONS statistics show that levels of staff sickness absence have reverted to pre-recession levels. Before the economic crisis, 2.5% of respondents said they had taken a day off in the 7 days prior to the survey. At the height of the downturn, this figure dropped to 2.1% but by the final quarter of 2010, it was back to 2.5%.
Jamie Jenkins, a statistician at the ONS, said that in the final three months of last year, 613,000 employees were absent at a cost to business of two million working days. However, this is an improvement since the start of the 21st century when the rate was 3.4%.
Over the last ten years, more females have been absent from work due to sickness than their male counterparts. In the last quarter, 264,000 men were absent compared to 349,000 women. The public sector (3.1%) still has a higher sickness rate than the private sector (2.3%).
Stress is one of the main reasons for absences amongst female employees. This might prompt some employers to consider a more flexible work routine as results of other surveys show that freelancers tend to suffer less stress than employees.
The government is planning to review sickness absence as part of its reform of the UK’s welfare provisions, a move that has received the backing of the CIPD. The Institute carried out its own research and found that last year the average level of sickness per employee was 7.7 days.
Ben Willmott from the CIPD said that for too long dependency on long-term benefits and employees’ approach to sickness have resembled a game of snakes and ladders, where there are an excess of snakes and not enough ladders.
He wants to see the government working with employers to stop long-term sickness absences. Willmott pointed out that very few small businesses provide their employees with access to occupational health services even though there is evidence to suggest that such services help people with health problems to return to the workplace.
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Image: Still Sick by spcbrass
