In 2022 we may have been sick more often than ever before and in 2023 we certainly got off to a bad start. According to figures from HumanCapitalCare, the largest occupational health and safety service provider in the Netherlands, an average of 48 out of 1,000 employees were sick at home every day last year. As far as we know, that is a record, says medical director Jurriaan Penders.
“Although 2022 was a year without a major corona wave, more people were sick than a year earlier,” says Penders. “By working from home and keeping a distance, we were sick less often in 2021.”
At the end of last year, flu was the main thing that kept us at home from work or away from the screen. “That trend will continue at the beginning of the new year.” The flu wave first hit in mid-December. “And that usually doesn’t take just one or two weeks,” says the medical director, who is also a company doctor.
Normally, fewer people call in sick during the holidays. Despite this, absenteeism at the end of the year was higher than usual. “The flu will also be among us for a while.”
Last year, many people also reported sick from work because they were exhausted. Then it often takes a long time before they can go back to work. “An employee with a burnout is out of circulation for an average of 279 days.”
HumanCapitalCare, together with ArboNed, is part of HumanTotalCare, which has insight into the absenteeism of approximately one million employees in the Netherlands.
