Archive:Absences from work - quarterly statistics
Data extracted in July 2020
Planned article update: Month YYYY
Highlights
First quarter of 2020: 2.3 million people were lay-offed from work in EU
More than one-in-seven employed people absent from work in France and Sweden
The absences from work can be classified in two groups: at one side, the planned, desired absences (e.g. annual holidays) and at the other side, the unplanned, undesired absences (e.g. illnesses, lay-offs). Whereas the first type of absences could be easily “absorbed” by the companies as their effect could be mitigated by for example rescheduling the work priorities or recruiting temporary staff; the second type could lead to disruption of the production cycles and lead to material losses to both employers and employees.
It is worth noting that sometimes this distinction could be not so easy to make. Usually, annual leaves are guaranteed by the legislation, which may lead some employers to encourage their employees to take holidays when the enterprise is facing economic difficulties. This means that holidays sometimes may mask actual lay-offs.
The beginning of 2020 was marked with an outbreak of worldwide pandemic - COVID-19, which led almost all governments around the globe to take restrictive measures, of which the social distancing had a pivotal role. To prevent the spread of the virus and to ensure distancing of people, many businesses were temporarily shut down and many employees were confined at their homes. Whereas worker protection laws may imply that employment, specifically of employees, will not be affected, at least in the beginning of the pandemic, one may expect over time a sharp rise of absences from work, which fall under the aforementioned second category of undesired, unplanned absences.
This article aims to depict the absences from work in the European Union as a whole and in the different EU Member States. The article is a part of the online publication Labour market in the light if the COVID 19 pandemic - quarterly statistics alongside with the articles Labour market slack - unmet need for employment, Hours of work, Employment and Sample size and non-response.
Full article
Sharp increase in the number of absences from work in the first quarter of 2020
Over the last fourteen years, until the end of 2019, the total number absences from work varied from 14.6 to 18.8 million (Figure 1). Over this period, a couple of sharp peaks stand out. Namely, in the first quarter of 2015, absences increased by 0.9 million, compared to the preceding quarter, and reached 17.9 million and in the first quarter of 2009 when absences accounted for 17.4 million or increased by 1.4 million in comparison to the fourth quarter of 2008. In the first quarter of 2020, absences from work recorded unprecedented levels since the beginning of the time series in terms of both increase in comparison to the previous quarter and higher absolute number in comparison to the whole time span since 2006. At the beginning of 2020, 22.9 million people were absent from their jobs, 4.3 million more compared to the last quarter of 2019 and 4.9 million more compared to the first quarter of 2019.
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Looking at the reasons for absence (the Infographic at the beginning), we may deduce that the rise in the first quarter of 2020 is primarily due to the increase of lay-offs. The levels of lay-offs had been relatively stable in the period before the fourth quarter of 2019, with the exception of the first two quarters of 2009 when they consecutively rose with 0.3 million per quarter, and their number never exceed 0.5 million after 2014. In the first quarter of 2020, 2.3 million people were absent from work because of lay-off, an increase of 2.0 million in comparison to the last quarter of 2019. The second-largest increase is observed among the people having “other” reason for being absent - from 3.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 4.9 million in the first quarter of 2020, or a rise of 1.6 million. People being absent from their work due to the other two reasons considered in the Infographic also rose since the end of 2019 - the number of people on holidays enlarged from 10.9 to 11.5 million, or with 0.6 million, and people being absent due to own illness or disability increased from 4.1 to 4.2 million, or with 0.1 million.
Figure 2 compares overall absences from work as a percentage of the employment in the last two quarters (fourth of 2019 and first of 2020). At EU level, absences accounted for 9.7 % of employment at the end of 2019 and reached 12.0 % at the beginning of 2020, an increase of 2.3 p.p. Among the Member States for which data are available, the highest rates of absences from work in the first quarter 2020 were observed in France (18.1 %), Sweden (16.2 %) and Austria (15.0 %) and the lowest rates in Romania (2.5 %), Malta (3.3 %), and Bulgaria (4.4 %). All EU Member States except Finland experienced a rise in this rate. Most prominent increases could be observed in Italy (from 7.6 % to 13.4 %), Cyprus (from 7.5 % to 12.8 %) and Greece (from 3.3 % to 8.3 %).
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
Men and women in employment were not equally absent from work. Among all Member Stated, except Cyprus, shares of absences from work were higher among employed women than among employed men (Figure 3). This difference was most sizable in Lithuania, where the share of absences among women was more than two and a half times larger than among men - 17.1 % for women compared to 6.5 % for men. Following Lithuania, the gap between the absence rates for men and women was most prominent in Hungary (5.5 % absent men, 13.2 % absent women), Poland (5.1 % absent men, 12.1 % absent women) and Latvia (5.0 % absent men, 12.0 % absent women).
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Considering the shares of men and women among the absences, there was a prevalence of women in all Member States, with Cyprus as the only exception, where 52.1 % of those absent from work were men. Women outnumbered men the most in Romania, where 72.8 % of people absent from their jobs were women, followed by Lithuania and Latvia, where women accounted for respectively 72.5 % and 70.5 % from all absent from work persons. <sesection>
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lay-off, Illness or disability, holidays
Absences from work due to lay-off
In the first quarter of 2020, 2.3 million people were lay-offed from work in EU. This equals to 1.2 % of the population of employed (Figure 4). This rate varied sensibly across the Member States for which data is available. From 4.0 % in Cyprus, 3.0 % in Italy, 2.8 % in Greece, 2.7 % in Spain, 2.2 % in France to 0.5 % or less in the Netherlands, Hungary, Sweden, Slovakia and Czechia. Looking at the breakdown by sex, it is visible that in four of EU counters, the rate of absent from work men was slightly higher than the same for women, namely Cyprus, Finland, France and Belgium; equal for the men and women in Czechia; and for the rest of the countries was higher for women than for men.
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
All EU Member States for which data is available experienced an increase in the number of people absent from work due to lay-off in the first quarter of 2020, but some saw a very sharp rise. For example, In Spain, the number of lay-offs rose from 13.9 thousand at the end 2019 to 525.2 thousand at the beginning of 2020, in France from 22.4 to 575.2 thousand and in Italy from 104.6 to 671.3 thousand.
Absences due to own illness or disability
Own illness or disability was the reason for 4.2 million people in the EU to be absent from work in the first quarter of 2020. These were 2.2 % of employed (Figure 5). The share of absences from work because of this cause was largest in Belgium (3.8 %), Portugal (3.6 %), France and Slovenia (both 3.2 %) and Spain (3.0 %) and smallest in Hungary (0.9 %), Italy (0.7 %), Bulgaria (0.3 %) and Greece (0.1 %). In the majority of Member States, this rate was higher for women than for men; exceptions were Greece and Lithuania, where the rates were equal for both sexes. The gap was most considerable in Belgium, where employed women absent from work due to own illness or disability amounted for 4.7 %, compared to 3.0 % for the employed men, and also in Slovenia, where women in the same category were 4.1 %, compared to 2.4 % for men.
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
Absences from work due to holidays
People absent from work due to holidays were 11.5 million in EU at the beginning of 2020, or 6.0 % of employed (Figure 6). This rate ranged from more than 8.0 % in France (10.5 %), Sweden (9.2 %), Austria (8.5 %) and Finland (8.1 %) to less than 4.0 % in Poland (3.1 %), Bulgaria (3.0 %), Latvia (2.7 %), Greece (2.5 %) and Romania (1.3 %). Among the Member States, this share was higher for women than for men. The only exception was Cyprus where the share of employed people absent from work due to holidays was higher for men than for women (6.7 % compared to 5.7 %). Regarding this dimension, it is worth noticing that the gap between men and women in Hungary was the largest. Men absent from work due to holidays were 4.1 % compared to 10.6 % of women.
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
The absolute number of absences from work due to holidays increased its size from the fourth quarter of 2019 to the first of 2020 in almost all EU countries; the exceptions were Estonia and Finland. The largest increase could be observed in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, where the number of absent from work people because of holidays doubled its size, respectively from 133.1 to 307.5 thousand (Hungary), from 48.6 to 106.5 thousand (Romania) and from 43.5 to 93.3 thousand (Bulgaria).
Source data for tables and graphs
Data sources
All figures in this article are based on seasonally adjusted quarterly results from European labour force survey (EU-LFS).
Source: The European Union labour force survey (EU-LFS) is the largest European household sample survey providing quarterly and annual results on labour participation of people aged 15 and over as well as on persons outside the labour force. It covers residents in private households. Conscripts in military or community service are not included in the results. The EU-LFS is based on the same target populations and uses the same definitions in all countries, which means that the results are comparable between countries.
The notion of temporary absence from work refers to situations in which a period of work is interrupted by a period of absence. This implies that persons are generally to be considered as having been temporarily absent from work and therefore employed, if they had already worked at their current activity and were expected to return to their work after the period of absence. Persons without work who had made arrangements to take up paid employment or to engage in some self-employment activity at a date subsequent to the reference period, but who had not yet started work, are not to be considered as temporarily absent from work.
This article refers to the following reasons for absence from work - lay-off, holidays, own illness or disability and other. Absence from work is classified as a “lay-off” if it is due to slack work for technical or economic reasons; this category also includes absences due to difficulties such as plant breakdown or materials shortage. Those whom written or unwritten contract of employment, or activity, has been suspended by the employer are also considered as employed and absent from work due to lay-off if they have an assurance of return to work within a period of 3 months or receive at least 50 % of their wage or salary from their employer. “Own illness or disability” includes own illness, injury or temporary disability. The category “other” encompasses absences due to bad weather, labour dispute, school education or training, maternity leave, parental leave, compensation leave and other personal or family reasons.
For more information on absences from work, consult p. 22 to p. 28 from EU Labour Force Survey Explanatory Notes
Context
The Covid-19 virus hit Europe in January and February 2020, with the first cases confirmed in Spain, France and Italy. Covid-19 infections have now been diagnosed in all European Union Member States.
To fight the pandemic, EU Member States have taken a wide variety of measures.
From the second week of March, most countries closed retail shops apart from supermarkets, pharmacies and banks. Bars, restaurants and hotels have also been closed. In Italy and Spain, non-essential production was stopped and several countries imposed regional or even national lockdown measures which further stifled the economic activities in many areas.
In addition, schools were closed, public events were cancelled and private gatherings (with numbers of persons varying from 2 to 50) were banned in most Member States.
The large majority of the prevention measures were taken during mid-March 2020 and most of the prevention measures and restrictions were kept for the whole of April and May 2020.
The first quarter 2020 is consequently the first quarter in which the labour market across the EU has been affected by COVID-19 measures taken by the Member States.
Employment and unemployment as defined by the ILO concept are, in this particular situation, not sufficient to describe the developments taking place in the labour market. In this first phase of the crisis, active measures to contain employment losses led to absences from work rather than dismissals, and individuals could not search for work or were not available due to the containment measures, thus not counting as unemployed.
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