Saturated healthcare, growing old workforces and unmotivated younger folks: the right storm that triggers sick go away | Economy | EUROtoday

The rising improve in absences from work attributable to sickness in Spain is a phenomenon that impacts firms, well being facilities and the Congress of Deputies itself.. The sick go away is information and the statistical information is incontestable. In 2017, with an employed inhabitants of 18 million folks, 4.7 million sick go away processes had been registered amongst staff. Eight years later, in 2024, with 21.8 million employed folks, there have been 8.6 million of those losses (technically often called short-term incapacity), virtually double. While the variety of staff grew by 19% on this interval, dismissal processes skyrocketed by 83%.

However, to get rid of the impact of employment on the expansion of sick go away (the logical factor is that the extra staff there are, the extra absences there will likely be), its incidence should be evaluated (an indicator that measures the variety of sick go away processes initiated on common per thirty days for each 1,000 staff protected by Social Security). According to this, in 2017 there have been 21.4 common processes per thirty days in comparison with 34 in 2024, nearly 60% extra. All these figures are within the report on public spending on short-term incapacity ready by the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility (Airef), essentially the most exhaustive on this matter just lately carried out by a public physique. The AMAT mutual affiliation, extending the interval between 2015 and 2025, observes a rise of greater than 80% in ten years.

The analyzes of public organizations, firms, unions, mutual societies and educational consultants absolutely agree on one factor: the causes of the phenomenon are a number of and have brought about an ideal storm that has led to an intense development in short-term incapacity. The wave of absences from work attributable to sickness has turn into an actual well being drawback for staff; workload for well being professionals; public spending for the State; and financial and organizational prices for firms. Only the short-term incapacity advantages paid by Social Security had been round 17,000 million euros final yr, to that are added one other 16,000 borne by firms (that are those that pay the wage prices of sick go away between the fourth and fifteenth day of the employee’s absence). The invoice for these advantages is already the second merchandise of social spending after pensions.

The 2020 covid pandemic could clarify a part of the change in staff’ relationship with well being, however not all. The disaster was international and, nevertheless, casualties are rising in Spain rather more intensely than in Europe. Since 2019, they’ve gathered will increase of 40% to 80% relying on sectors, in comparison with common will increase of 10% to 25% within the EU, in line with nationwide and worldwide organizations (Bank of Spain, Airef, OECD).

Explaining this anomaly will not be simple. The Airef speaks of a “structural deficiency”: whoever acknowledges the best to withdrawal will not be the one who pays for it. Primary care medical doctors—depending on the autonomous communities—determine the start and the top, whereas Social Security and corporations assume the associated fee. However, the professor of Labor and Social Security Law on the University of Seville, Jesús Cruz Villalón, factors out that this dichotomy is under no circumstances new, so it might clarify a part of the lengthening of the processes (a threat that Airef additionally warns about), however not the latest sharp improve. Villalón believes {that a} good in-depth analysis of the issue will not be being carried out, one thing important to sort out it. That stated, it factors to the “enormous deterioration of public health” as one of many foremost causes of the phenomenon, if not the principle one.

Waiting lists and demand for care

Health saturation has, in flip, a number of causes, together with unequal funding between communities. The Airef detects a scientific and constant correlation between the deterioration of ready lists and the rise within the common length of sick go away, which works from 40 to 46 days between 2017 and 2024. Thus, folks on surgical lists improve from 13 to 18 per 1,000 inhabitants and the pending specialist or exams improve from 62 to 100, in line with figures from the Ministry of Health included within the report Evolution of sick go away attributable to short-term incapacity. in Spain 2013-2025, ready by the Catalan SME affiliation Pimec. If these appointments take a very long time to reach, it takes longer for the employee to heal and, subsequently, to be discharged. Despite all the things, the impression of the rise in ready instances would particularly have an effect on solely a 3rd of the sick go away attributable to short-term incapacity that lasts greater than 15 days, for the reason that majority – of shorter length – don’t make it to the specialist or the working room.

Added to that is the rise in demand for care (the frequency of visits to the inhabitants’s physician). José Antonio Lull, main care physician on the Health Department of Gandía (Valencia) explains that “in recent years society has experienced a great change: people have become much more aware of their own health and there are more people who want to be better; but, paradoxically, they are less and less responsible for their own well-being. They come to the doctor more so that professionals can provide them with that care. Many want to lose weight and ask for pills for this, or for cholesterol, and thus continue without taking care of their diet, among others. many other examples.”

However, Airef points out that it is not just that more people go to the doctor, but that, since Covid, visits end more frequently in sick leave. After the health crisis, respiratory infections, non-specific symptoms – fatigue, anxiety or persistent Covid – and the use of sick leave as preventive rest have increased. This has led many companies to demand more sick leave reports, especially in large companies, which are up to 81% more likely to suffer sick leave among their teams than micro companies. And although since the pandemic, family doctors have been allowed to discharge and discharge patients in a single act in very short processes (up to five days), bureaucracy has not been reduced. “As a health care provider I’ve to fret in regards to the well being of my sufferers, however the paperwork kills me. 80% of it is rather cumbersome administrative procedures,” Lull complains.

The managing director of the association of mutual societies collaborating with Social Security, Pedro Pablo Sanz, adds other administrative overloads in the management of temporary disability. “For the identical sick go away, as much as 4 medical doctors are concerned – main care; mutual insurance coverage firms – since firms have delegated the administration of short-term incapacity to those entities for greater than 70% of staff and virtually all the self-employed -; the specialist and, then, if the factor is extended, the medical doctors of the National Social Security Institute (INSS), who’re those who’re solely in control of the administration and management of sick go away lasting greater than 12 months,” he indicates. Sanz. “This turns into an actual drawback, as a result of there are not any medical doctors; the administrations of various territories and the mutual insurance coverage firms dispute them amongst themselves,” complains this manager of the mutual insurance association.

To the problems of saturated healthcare we must add two other age-related phenomena. The average age of those employed in Spain was 41 years in 2015 and has risen to 43 ten years later. But the aging of staff does not mean so much an increase in the number of new processes as an increase in their duration. The Airef points out that workers between 55 and 65 years old have fewer sick leave (29.7 per 1,000 affiliates) than young people (41.1). However, they remain on sick leave much longer (79 days compared to 46), so aging increases spending mainly due to duration and not the number of processes. That said, in general, the duration of sick leave has also increased on average, from 41 days in 2017 to 46 in 2024. And, in addition, between 7% and 25% of sick leave, depending on the report consulted, are concentrated in half of the workers.

Behind this increase in the time that the worker is on sick leave is also the sharp increase in processes for mental disorders, the incidence of which grows by 80% between 2017 and 2024, according to Airef. And this especially affects young people. After musculoskeletal and respiratory diseases, they are the third most common cause and the first in people under 30 years of age. The average duration of these processes is among the highest and lasts about 100 days. Workers between 25 and 35 years old register 41.1 processes per 1,000 affiliates compared to 24 for those over 55, according to AMAT data.

Lower on Mondays

This links to another cause of the phenomenon, more intangible, but also widely cited by experts: cultural changes when dealing with daily work activity. A recent study by the Chambers of Commerce came to the conclusion, after interviewing 2,000 companies from all sectors throughout Spain, that the lack of motivation of young people has a greater influence on absenteeism than aging staff. “Among youthful staff there’s much less tolerance for frustration. Fridays finish nicely, as a result of they’ve the weekend forward of them, however then Monday is seen as a disaster,” says primary care doctor José Antonio Lull when asked about a possible justification for the fact that Monday is, by far, the day of the week with the most sick days. During 2025, almost 27% of the processes began on Monday, decreasing throughout the week to 13% of the total on Fridays.

There are other issues that are also difficult to measure with indicators—the less tangible parts of the problem would explain approximately a third of the sharp increase in sick leave, according to Airef—that have to do with working conditions. This organization has dared, for example, to put figures to a thorny issue: “Workers with an indefinite contract have a 30% greater propensity to initiate temporary disability processes.” [que los temporales]”, point out these consultants. To attain this assertion, Airef has primarily based itself on a probabilistic mannequin knowledgeable by a number of data and interviews with brokers of the system. Given that the 2022 labor reform has promoted indefinite hiring considerably, this, regardless of being excellent news for staff, would have additionally contributed to the rise in sick go away.

Among the much less quantifiable attainable causes can also be one that might clarify the rise in these disabilities because of the better participation of ladies within the labor market, who, in line with this identical evaluation, have a 21% better likelihood of beginning an episode of incapacity in comparison with males. “In the case of working women, many times, these absences arise due to the need to care for family members and not having adequate conciliation instruments,” concludes Professor Cruz Villalón.

Faced with this amalgam of causes, the brokers concerned have begun to concentrate on devising options. Social Security has opened a desk with employers and unions the place they negotiate points such because the progressive incorporation of sick go away from work or the sooner intervention of the INSS within the management of processes, as demanded by the employers. In addition, many firms have begun to attempt to lower wage dietary supplements for sick staff in contract negotiations. And Airef, for its half, calls for, amongst different issues, extra proactive sick go away administration by firms and better interconnection between all of the brokers concerned, in order that medical doctors obtain extra details about the work circumstances of staff and their firms. “If they give me that information, I will isolate myself from it,” concludes Lull, who argues that his selections should be strictly medical.