The problem is not new, but it is growing… Unveiled on Monday, the 4th edition of the Axa absenteeism observatory reveals that 44% of employees have been absent from their post at least once during during the year 2022. That is nearly one in two employees. According to the insurer, this is a “record”: only a third of employees had stopped at least once in 2019, the pre-Covid reference year.
This study, which is based on the decryption of monthly data from the group’s portfolio (3 million employees), is not the first to alert on the increasing absenteeism of the French. The latest barometer from the social protection group Malakoff Humanis, published in September, put forward similar figures: 42% of the 1,800 employees surveyed had filed for sick leave between September 2021 and September 2022. “We have to go back to 2016 to find a equivalent rate”, then indicated the organization.
2022 will therefore have seen more employees absent than the strong years of the Covid-19 epidemic, 2020 and 2021. A large part of the sick leave recorded last year would however be attributable to the health crisis, according to Axa. The epidemic waves linked to the Omicron variant, which appeared at the end of 2021 in France, would explain in particular the surge in work stoppages of between 4 and 7 days (11.8% between 2019 and 2022).
But it is the psychological weaknesses, sometimes aggravated by the confinements, which hold the attention of the insurer: 22.2% of long-term work stoppages occurring in 2022 are caused by psychological disorders. “This phenomenon is all the more worrying as it affects more and more young employees,” notes the study.
For all reasons, more and more young people are declaring themselves arrested. The absenteeism rate for those under 30 more than doubled between 2019 and 2022. In contrast to the age pyramid, seniors show a “more moderate” absenteeism, despite “an increase in the average duration of work stoppages “.
As in the past, executives are missing less than other workers: 2.3% absenteeism rate in 2022 for the former, 5.4% for the latter. But the trend observed in recent years is no less worrying. According to the observatory, “the absenteeism rate among executives increased by 41% between 2019 and 2022”. Empty chairs are more common in large companies than in small structures, where it is “more difficult to be able to stop without putting the company in difficulty”, notes the study.
Still, both large and small employers are penalized by employee absenteeism. As Axa points out, the inconveniences caused by the absence of one or more employees are numerous: loss of productivity, deterioration in the quality of service, additional stress for employees having to replace absentees, repercussions on the social climate… “Without count the financial costs, direct and indirect, of absenteeism, only partly covered by provident schemes”, observes the insurer.
A study by the Sapins Institute dated 2018 estimated the annual value losses caused by absenteeism at nearly 107 billion euros per year, “i.e., in order of magnitude, 4.7 points of GDP”. Its co-author, Laurent Cappelletti, raises absenteeism to the rank of “question of general interest”. “With absent employees, you lose productivity, which means less GDP, and ultimately an impoverishment of France”, warns the holder of the accounting and management control chair at the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts.
First financier of work stoppages by employees, the State has taken the measure of the phenomenon. “Sick leave represents a thirteenth month!”, Was indignant former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe in the summer of 2018, promising a major reform on daily allowances (IJ). But this stated will remained a dead letter and the IJs continued to fly away. Despite the deconfinement, their progress still amounted in April to 6.1% compared to the same period last year.
The government has tried to limit abusive declarations, by prohibiting sick leave issued by teleconsultation. He also worked on health risks and ill-being at work, making prevention a priority for the five-year term. But, for Laurent Cappelletti, the State is far from considering all the dimensions of the problem. “Absenteeism largely reflects managerial dysfunctions that undermine the quality of life at work,” he says. Physical and psychological working conditions are, according to him, only one vector among others of absenteeism. “We must also take into account time management, work organization, career prospects…”, he pleads. So many tracks that would explain the rise of work stoppages among young people and managers, formerly good students in terms of absenteeism.
Whatever the explanations, the trend towards the empty chair is not about to be reversed in France. Evidenced by Axa’s projections for the current year. Admittedly, the insurer anticipates “a slight drop in absenteeism compared to 2022”, thanks to the gradual neutralization of Covid-19. Not a return to normal yet. “The absenteeism rate and the percentage of employees absent for at least one day are expected to be levels well above those of 2019”, warns the insurer.
