The number of absences due to occupational illness registered in the first eight months of the year amounts to 6,172, 12.5% ??more than in the same period of the previous year and which constitutes the largest increase in a year of the entire series that begins in 2008, according to the Statistics of Occupational Diseases published this week by the Ministry of Labor.
This unprecedented increase in sick leave due to occupational illness adds to the increase that has occurred in sick leave due to common contingencies – not originating in the work environment -, which is a concern for social agents.
“We face the need to analyze, in each of the areas of action, the evolution of the indicators of temporary disability derived from common contingencies and to establish action measures that improve the health of workers and manage to reduce the frequency and duration of said processes, among others trying to make better use of the resources of the Mutual Collaborators of the Social Security”, stated employers and unions in their V Agreement for Employment and Collective Bargaining, signed in May.
The data published this week supports this concern since, if this growth rate continues – an average of 680 monthly sick leave of this type has gone from 772 – it is foreseeable that at the end of the year there will be more than 8,168 sick leave due to occupational disease. that occurred throughout 2022; although it does not seem likely that the 2019 maximum (of 11,0489 processes) will be reached.
Although there are more men than women who have taken this type of sick leave in the first eight months of the year (3,126 compared to 3,046), the greatest increase compared to last year has occurred among female workers: their sick leave has increased by 18.9% compared to the 6.8% year-on-year increase in theirs.
The duration of sick leave is an average of 107 days, 3.2% more than last year, with women’s sick leave being much longer: 116 days compared to the 97 days that men’s sick leave lasts on average.
To know the profile of the worker who has just gone on sick leave due to an illness derived from his or her employment, it is necessary to analyze different variables. The first of them is age, which shows that the majority of those affected are adults between 40 and 54 years old, who accumulate 57% of the reports; while those over that age only account for 20% of the casualties.
Regarding the activity they carry out, the most harmful sectors are cleaning, the food industry, retail trade, gardening and building services, hospitality, construction and the manufacture of metal products and vehicles. motor.
Once you have identified who is sick, where and for how long, it is worth knowing why: more than half of sick leave (51%) are caused by muscle or tendon diseases as a result of having forced postures or performing movements. repetitive at work; while 31% are due to nerve paralysis for the same reason. 18% of cases are due to skin diseases due to contact with certain substances; diseases from inhaling toxic elements; and by biological or chemical agents.
Illnesses associated with stress are barely recognized as professional, something that UGT has denounced: “Mental disorders, pathologies related to exposure to psychosocial and organizational risks of work origin, are barely recognized as a professional contingency (…) We propose a updating of the Spanish List of Occupational Diseases and an improvement in the notification and registration system that allows all hidden occupational diseases to surface”, among which also include those caused by carcinogens.
The general aging of the population is one of the factors that explains the increase in sick leave, since before the proportion of young workers was much higher than now (those under 30 represented 30.5% of employees in the year 2002 and are 19.2% now), while the weight of employees aged 45 to 50 has gone from 19.7% at the beginning of the century to 29.1% today.
“According to the mutual insurance companies, there has been an increase in sick leave due to diseases linked to mobility – fractures, sprains, etc. – So there is not necessarily a relationship with covid, although there are lower detection rates and waiting lists in Health that give rise to longer sick leave,” Marcel Jansen, a Fedea researcher, pointed out before the summer.
Leaves due to occupational illness are borne by companies, hence their increase may constitute an element of concern; while in those that occur due to common contingencies, the benefit is paid by the company from the fourth to the fifteenth day and, from then on, by Social Security. During the entire period, the company has fewer workers and its workforce is reduced.
When the reduction occurs in the public sector, all expenses are borne by the State. Since casualties have increased in all sectors, this translates into an increase in public spending, especially in some areas. “In the case of teachers and doctors, not only do they not work when they are on sick leave, but at the same time they have to be replaced, because you cannot stop teaching or caring for patients, and the same thing happens in healthcare when “They go on vacation, they count two employees: the one who is on sick leave or vacation and the one who replaces them. There is an effect on employment and double accounting,” said Florentino Felgueroso, a researcher at the same think tank specializing in the labor market.
