Archive:Absences from work - quarterly statistics
Data extracted in November 2020
Planned article update: January 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 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 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 at 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 a 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, 18.5 million people were absent from their jobs in the EU. This number reached 22.3 million in the beginning of 2020, i.e. the first quarter of the year. In the second quarter of 2020, the number of people absent from work saw an even more striking increase, it almost doubled from the previous quarter and reached 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. Over this period, a couple of sharp peaks stood out. For example, in the first quarter of 2009 absences increased by 2.3 million in comparison to the fourth quarter of 2008 and accounted for 18.0 million. Also, in the first quarter of 2015 absences rose by 1.2 million compared with the preceding quarter, and reached 18.1 million. However, the level of absences from work in the first half of 2020 was unparalleled, like it had never seen before.
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The rise of absences from work in 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 the first quarter of 2020, with the exception of the first and second quarter of 2009, when they rose consecutively by 0.3 and 0.2 million. Their number never exceeded 0.5 million after the third quarter of 2014. However, in the first quarter of 2020, 2.4 million people were absent from work because of temporary lay-off, an increase of 2.1 million in comparison to the previous quarter. In the following quarter (second quarter of 2020), this number increased even more sharply, by nearly eight times, and reached 19.3 million.
The second category of absences with the largest increase during the first half of 2020 is observed for “other” reasons for being absent which includes but it is not limited to absences due to personal or family responsibilities. The number of absences in this category went from 3.5 million in the last quarter of 2019 to 4.9 and 7.8 million for the first and second quarter of 2020 respectively.
On the other hand, the number of people absent due to own illness or disability initially decreased from 4.1 million in Q4 2019 to 3.9 million in Q1 2020, then it increased to 4.4 million in Q2 2020. Finally, the number of people not being at work due to holidays increased from 10.7 million in the last quarter of 2019 (Q4 2019) to 11.0 million in the first quarter of 2020 (Q1 2020) and decreased back to 9.5 million during the following quarter (Q2 2020).
As shown in Figure 3, the temporary lay-off was the major reason for people to be absent from work during the second quarter of 2020 in the EU-27. Absences due to temporary lay-off only represented 1.7 % of all absences in the last quarter of 2019, whereas this share grew to 10.9 % in the first quarter of 2020 and escalated to 47.2 % in the second quarter of 2020.
Looking at the distribution of the other reasons for absence during the last three quarters with available data (from Q4 2019 to Q2 2020), it is visible that the rise of the share of lay-offs is accompanied by a decrease of the share of holidays as a reason for people not to be at work. Holidays represented the largest reason for absence in the fourth quarter of 2019, with 57.6 %. Then, their share diminished to 49.5 % and 23.2 % in the first and the second quarter of 2020 respectively.
The share of people being away from their jobs due to own illness or disability (among all absences) also shrank between Q4 2019 and Q2 2020: it went from 21.9 % in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 17.4 % in the first quarter of 2020 and to 10.7 % in the second quarter of 2020.
Although the number of people having “other” reasons for being absent from work increased substantially since the last quarter of 2019, their relative share among all absences remained relatively stable. It increased from 18.9 % in the fourth quarter of 2019 to 22.1 % in the first quarter of 2020, but then went back to 19.0 % in the second quarter of 2020, almost returning to its value from the last quarter of 2019.
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Figure 4 compares overall absences from work as a percentage of employment in the last two quarters (Q1 and Q2 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, corresponding to an increase of 10.1 percentage points (p.p.) between Q1 2020 and Q2 2020. For comparison, the same share at the end of 2019 (Q4 2019) was 9.7 %. Note that the evolution of this ratio encompasses the evolution in the level of absences but also in the level of employment.
During the second quarter of 2020, the lowest rates of employed people who were absent from work in the EU were recorded in Bulgaria (10.9 %), Latvia (12.0 %) and Luxembourg (12.9 %). In contrast, in 11 other Member States, absences accounted for more than one fifth of employment during the same period. Among those, the lowest percentages were recorded in Denmark (20.6 %), Belgium (21.6 %) and Slovakia (21.7 %) while the highest percentages were reported by Greece (39.6 %), Cyprus (32.0 %) and France (27.7 %).
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
The share of absences among employed people increased in all EU Member States (with available data) from the first to the second quarter of 2020. However, the growth varied a lot across countries: from +0.7 p.p. in Sweden, +0.8 p.p. in Lithuania and +2.1 p.p. in the Netherlands to +17.4 p.p. in Ireland, +20.1 p.p. in Cyprus and even +31.5 p.p. in Greece.
Considering the gender difference in the absences from work during the second quarter of 2020, expressed as a percentage of employment, women were more absent form work than men at EU level: 24.6 % of women were absent versus 19.4 % of men (Figure 5). Across Member States, the share of men absent from work was the largest in Greece (40.2 %), followed by Cyprus (32.6 %) and France (26.1 %) while the lowest percentage of men absent from work was recorded in Latvia (9.0 %), followed by Bulgaria (8.9 %) and Lithuania (8.5 %). The corresponding share for women was also the highest in Greece (38.6 %), but in this case followed by Ireland (31.7 %) and Slovenia (31.2 %). Employed women were the least absent from work in Estonia (14.7 %), Hungary (13.7 %) and Bulgaria (13.3 %). Countries where the percentage of women absent from work was the highest compared to the corresponding percentage of men were Romania (20.1 % for women versus 9.9 % for men, 10.2 p.p. difference) and Lithuania (18.6 % for women versus 8.5 % for men, 10.1 p.p. difference). By contrast, the share of men absent from work exceeded the one of women in Hungary, Greece and Cyprus. The difference was small in Greece (1.6 p.p.) and Cyprus (1.5 p.p.) but more substantial in Hungary, with 22.7 % Hungarian men absent versus 13.7 % Hungarian women absent (9.0 p.p. difference).
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Absences from work due to holidays
People absent from work due to holidays were 9.5 million in the EU in the second quarter of 2020, corresponding to 5.1 % of the employed population (Figure 6). This rate ranged from 8.6 % in France, 7.8 % in Finland and 7.2 % in Sweden, to 1.1 % in Malta, 2.0 % in Luxembourg, 2.6 % in Lithuania and 2.9 % in Poland.
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Source: Eurostat (lfsi_emp_q), (lfsi_abs_q)
Considering the development over the first half of 2020 at EU level, the share of people absent due to holidays experienced a decrease of -0.7 p.p. from the first to the second quarter of the year (from 5.8 % to 5.1 %). The majority of Member States (21 out of 26 countries for which data are available) also saw this rate falling over the same period with decreases ranging from -0.2 p.p. in Ireland, Italy, Slovakia and Poland to -2.5 p.p. in Luxembourg, -2.6 p.p. in the Netherlands and -3.7 p.p. in Lithuania. By contrast, the share of people being on holidays increased from the first to the second quarter of 2020 in Malta (+0.3 p.p.), Latvia (+0.4 p.p.), Greece (+0.5 p.p.), Bulgaria (+1.0 p.p.) and Romania (+4.1 p.p.).
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 of 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 of 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 of 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 of temporary lay-off, as a share of employment, were encountered in Cyprus, Greece and Spain, the number of workers being 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 being at work due to temporary lay-off increased relatively the most between Q1 2020 and Q2 2020: from 16.3 to 525.8 thousand in Romania (32 times more), from 57.8 to 694.0 thousand in Portugal (12 times more) and from 13.5 to 149.1 thousand 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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