Archive:Absences from work - quarterly statistics
Data extracted in December 2020
Planned article update: April 2021
Highlights
Absences from work can be classified in two groups: on one side, the planned, desired absences (e.g. annual holidays) and on the other side, the unplanned, undesired absences (e.g. illnesses, lay-offs). While the first type of absences could be easily “absorbed” by the companies as their effect could be planned and also mitigated, for example, by 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 is not so easy to make. Usually, annual leave is guaranteed by 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 by an outbreak of the worldwide pandemic COVID-19, leading 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 confined to their homes. Whereas worker protection laws may imply that employment, especially 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 falls under the aforementioned second category of undesired, unplanned absences.
This article aims to depict the absences from work in the European Union (EU) as a whole, for all EU Member States individually (except Germany for which data is not yet available), as well as for the United Kingdom, three EFTA countries (Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) and two candidate countries (Serbia and Turkey). Please note that the presented data is seasonally adjusted.
The population of interest in this article is employed persons (age group 20-64) who are temporarily absent from work (incl. business). The notion of temporary absence from work refers to situations in which a period of work is interrupted by a period of absence.
The article is part of the online publication Labour market in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic - quarterly statistics along with the articles Labour market slack - unmet need for employment and Hours of work.
Full article
Sharp increase in the number of absences in the first half of 2020
In the first half of 2020, absences from work recorded unprecedented levels since the beginning of the time series in 2006 (Figure 1), both in terms of increase in a single quarter and of volume in comparison to the whole time span. In the last quarter of 2019 (Q4 2019), 18.5 million people were absent from their jobs in the EU. This number reached 22.3 million at the beginning of 2020, i.e. the first quarter of the year (Q1 2020). In the second quarter of 2020 (Q2 2020), the number of people absent from work saw an even more striking increase, almost doubling from the previous quarter to reach 40.9 million. For reference, over the last fourteen years, until the end of 2019, the total number of absences from work varied from 14.6 to 18.6 million.
During the third quarter of 2020 (Q3 2020), the COVID confinement measures were eased in many countries. The number of people absent from their jobs also reflected this. After its sharp increase during the first two quarters of 2020, in the third quarter of the year, absences from work accounted for 17.0 million people, this was with 18.0 million less than in Q2 2020 and with 1.5 million less than in Q4 2019.
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The rise of absences from work in the EU during the first half of 2020 is primarily due to the increase of temporary lay-offs (Figure 2). The levels of temporary lay-offs had been relatively stable in the period before Q1 2020, with the exception of the first two quarters of 2009, when they rose consecutively by 0.3 and 0.2 million. Their number also never exceeded 0.5 million after the third quarter of 2014. However, in Q1 2020, 2.4 million people were absent from work because of temporary lay-off, an increase of 2.1 million in comparison with the previous quarter. In the following quarter (Q2 2020), this number increased even more sharply, by nearly eight times, and reached 19.3 million. In Q3 2020, the number of temporary lay-offs steeply went down to 2.0 million, however, this was still substantially more than the last quarter of 2019 when people absent from their jobs due to this reason were 0.3 million.
Consigning the recent development of the other two categories for absence illustrated in Figure 2. “Own illness or disability” was the reason for 4.1 million people to not be at work in Q4 2019. This number slightly decreased to 3.9 million in Q1 2020, then, increased to 4.4 million in Q2 2020 and returned to 3.9 million in Q3 2020. Finally, the number of people who were not at work due to holidays slightly increased from 10.8 to 11.2 million between Q4 2019 and Q1 2020. Hereafter, it dropped to 8.8 million in Q2 2020. This decline continued and during Q3 2020, when the number of absences due to holidays reached 7.6 million, an all-time low for the whole time series since 2006.
The structure of absences by reasons in the EU during the last four quarters (Q4 2019 - Q3 2020) is shown in Figure 3. It is visible that holidays were the most predominant reason for absence in Q4 2019 with 58.3 % of all absences during this period. Between Q4 2019 and Q2 2020, the situation changed and holidays were replaced by temporary lay-off as the most widespread reason for absence. Temporary lay-offs amounted to 39.4 % of absences from work in Q2 2020. In the following quarter (Q3 2020), holidays regained its prevalent position among absences with 44.8 % of all absences; however, this was still with 13.5 percentage points less than its level in Q4 2019. On the other hand, during Q3 2020, with 11.6 % temporary lay-offs were still above its level in Q4 2019. It is also worth noting that after two consecutive quarters of reduction, the share of absences reasoned by own illness or disability in Q3 2020 returned to close proximity to its level in Q4 2019 with 22.9 %.
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Figure 4 compares the overall absences from work as a percentage of employment in the first three quarters of 2020. At EU level, absences accounted for 11.7 % of employment in the first quarter and reached 21.8 % in the second quarter of 2020. Hereafter, this share went down and reached 9.1 % in the third quarter of the year. Note that the evolution of this ratio encompasses the evolution in the level of absences but also in the level of employment.
The situation among the Member States, with the exception of Sweden, was similar as in the EU level: shares of absences from work increased from Q1 to Q2 2020, and in Q3 2020 dropped to levels lower than the previous two quarters. This development was very dynamic in the majority of EU countries, the most in Cyprus, Greece and Spain. In Cyprus, shares of absences went up from 12.5 % in Q1 to 29.6 % in Q2 and dropped to 8.6 % in Q3. In Greece, absences represented 9.6 % of employment in Q1, 24.0 % in Q2 and 5.2 % in Q3. In Spain, 12.2 % in Q1, 27.4 % in Q2 and 11.9 % in Q3. In contrast, in Sweden, the share of absences remained almost stable during the first three quarters of 2020: 16.3 % in Q1, 16.2 % in Q2 and 16.1 % in Q3. Note that, in Q3 2020, Sweden registered the highest share among the EU countries.
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
It is also worth noting that during the first three quarters of 2020, France was always among the EU countries with the highest share of absences from work with 18.5 % in Q1, 27.1 % in Q2 and 14.4 % in Q3. On the other side of the scale, with perseveringly low rates of absences during the same period, Malta, Bulgaria and Romania stand out from the other Member States.
Figure 5 compares the shares of absence from work in Q3 2020 with Q4 2019, the quarter before the outbreak of the COVID pandemic in Europe. Considering only the development between those two periods, in the majority of the EU countries (15 out of 26 with available data), the share of absences was higher in Q3 2020 than in Q4 2019. Among those, the largest increase could be observed in Ireland (+4.6 p.p.) and Spain (+2.9 p.p.), and the smallest in Lithuania and Croatia (+0.1 p.p. for both). In the remaining 11 EU countries, the share of absences recorded in Q3 2020 was lower than in Q4 2019, the reduction was the most substantial in Slovakia (-3.0 p.p.) and Estonia (-2.1 p.p.) and rather minor in Czechia, Denmark (-0.3 p.p. for both) and in Malta (-0.1 p.p.). At EU level, absences from work expressed as a percentage of employment in Q3 2020 were with -0.6 p.p. less than in Q4 2019.
Bringing into focus and the non-EU countries, the United Kingdom stands out with a share of absences in Q3 2020 being with 8.8 p.p. higher than those in Q4 2019. Moreover, absences from work in the United Kingdom in Q3 2020 reached 19.1 % of employment, which was the highest rate among all countries with available data for this quarter.
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
Considering only Q3 2020, absences among employment were higher for women than for men in all Member States as shown in Figure 6. This is also conferment at EU level: 7.4 % of employed men were not at work, against 11.0 % of employed women. The gap between genders was widest in Ireland, where absences stood at 8.8 % for men and 16.3 % for women, followed by Slovenia (9.3 % for men versus 15.8 % for women) and Poland (4.4 % for men versus 10.4 % for women). The narrowest gap was observed in Estonia, followed by Hungary and Bulgaria (in all three less than 1.5 p.p. difference between men and women).
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Absences from work due to holidays
People absent from work due to holidays reached 11.2 million in the EU in Q1 2020. Subsequently, this number dropped to 8.8 million in Q2 2020 and 7.6 million in Q3 2020. Expressed as a share of employed people, for the first three consecutive quarters of 2020, absences due to holidays represented 5.9 % in Q1, 4.7 % in Q2 and 4.1 % in Q3 at EU level (Figure 7).
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
Overall, during the first three quarters of 2020, France and Sweden were the Member States, where the share of people absent due to holidays was always among the highest for the whole period. This share in France was 10.6 % in Q1, 8.2 % in Q2 and 8.5 % in Q3, and in Sweden - 9.2 % in Q1, 6.8 % in Q2 and 8.9 % in Q3. Moreover, the share of absences due to holidays was the highest in France during Q1 2020, followed by Sweden, and in Q3 2020, the situation was the opposite - Sweden on top followed by France. On the other side of the scale, with relatively smallest shares were Bulgaria, Romania and Malta. In Bulgaria and Romania, absences due to holidays reached its highest share of employment for the first three quarters of 2020 in Q2 (2.6 % for Bulgaria and 2.5 % for Romania). In Malta, the same share reached its highest values for the first three quarters of 2020 in Q1 and amounted to 0.9 %.
Absences from work due to own illness or disability
Own illness or disability was the reason for 4.4 million people in the EU to be absent from work in the second quarter of 2020. This represented 2.3 % of the employed population (Figure 7). The share of absences from work because of this reason was the largest in Spain (4.1 %), France (3.9 %), Portugal (3.8 %) and Sweden (3.6 %). By contrast, the smallest shares were recorded in Cyprus, Italy, Bulgaria and Greece (all four less than 1 % of employment).
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
From the first to the second quarter of 2020, the share of employed people who were absent from work due to own illness or disability increased from 2.0 % to 2.3 % (+0.3 p.p.) at EU level. In two EU countries, namely Ireland (1.4 %) and Italy (0.6 %), it remained stable in the first two quarters of 2020. In eight other Member States, it went slightly down, with a decrease ranging from -0.1 p.p. in Denmark to -0.4 p.p. in Croatia. However, the majority of EU Member States (for which data are available), precisely 14 EU Member States, encountered an increase in the share of employed people absent because of own illness or disability. Among those, Latvia, the Netherlands and Greece experienced the lowest increase (+0.1 p.p.), while Spain and Sweden corresponded to the largest growths (+1.0 p.p. and +1.1 p.p. respectively).
Absences from work due to temporary lay-off
At EU level, in the second quarter of 2020, 19.3 million people were absent from work due to temporary lay-off, corresponding to 10.3 % of the employed population (Figure 8). For comparison, this share was 1.3 % in the first quarter of the year. Please note that in this article temporary lay-off should not be understood as a dismissal but as temporarily leave due to technical or economic reasons.
The share of people absent from work due to temporary lay-off varied significantly across EU countries (with available data) in the second quarter of 2020. The Member State which registered the highest share was Cyprus, with 26.0 % of people absent due to temporary lay-off among employed people, followed by Greece (21.4 %), Spain (18.1 %), Slovenia (15.8 %) and Portugal (15.5 %). In contrast, the Netherlands, Sweden, Lithuania and Czechia recorded shares of less than 2 %. For benchmark, in the fourth quarter of 2019, i.e. the quarter before the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, there was no Member State (with available data) where people absent due to lay-off represented more than 1 % of employment.
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
The EU countries which recorded the highest share of temporary lay-offs among employed people in the second quarter of 2020 also recorded the highest increase in this share from the first to the second quarter of 2020. Temporary lay-offs went up in Cyprus with +22.1 p.p., in Greece with +17.8 p.p. and in Spain with +15.3 p.p. There is not a single EU Member State (with data available for both the first and second quarter of 2020) which marked a decrease in the share of temporary lay-offs between these two quarters. However, some countries experienced a relatively moderate increase, namely Czechia (+0.8 p.p.), the Netherlands (+1.2 p.p.) and Sweden (+1.3 p.p.).
It is worth mentioning that, although the highest increases in temporary lay-offs, as a share of employment, were encountered in Cyprus, Greece and Spain, the number of workers absent because of temporary lay-off rose the most in other three EU Member States. Indeed, Romania, Portugal and Slovenia were the countries where people not at work due to temporary lay-off increased relatively the most between Q1 2020 and Q2 2020: from 16 300 to 525 800 in Romania (32 times more), from 57 800 to 694 000 in Portugal (12 times more) and from 13 500 to 149 100 in Slovenia (11 times more).
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 mostly 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.
European aggregates: EU refers to the sum of EU-27 Member States. If data are unavailable for a country, the calculation of the corresponding aggregates is computed with estimates. Such cases are indicated.
Country note: Due to technical issues with the introduction of the new German system of integrated household surveys, including the Labour Force Survey (LFS), the figures for Germany for the first and second quarter of 2020 are not direct estimates from LFS microdata, but based on a larger sample including additional data from other integrated household surveys. A restricted set of indicators has been estimated and used for the production of the LFS Main Indicators. These estimates have also been used in the calculation of EU and EA aggregates, and are published for some selected indicators (estimates for Germany are flagged as p – provisional, and u – unreliable). For more information, see here.
Definition: 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: temporary lay-off, holidays, own illness or disability and other. Absence from work is classified as a “temporary 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 temporary 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, please consult pages 22 to 28 from EU Labour Force Survey Explanatory Notes
Context
The COVID-19 pandemic 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 (EU) 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 lock-down 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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