The reason why employees are pulling more sick days

More Aussie employees have been ditching work either due to actual illness or because new work practices are making it easier to take sickies, new figures reveal.

Aussies are pulling more sickies and ditching work, with the latest employment figures recording the number of people working reduced hours due to illness significantly up.

New insight from Westpac reveals a drag on employment last month with the amount of workers clocking in reduced hours due to sickness increased by 86,000 to 606,000 last month.

This jump is more than 50 per cent higher than usual figures seen during the holiday season.

AMP chief economist Shane Oliver said Covid sickness was the likely culprit for the December slump.

“It is likely due to the pick-up of coronavirus cases and people still feeling that, quite rightly, that they should stay at home with their illness rather than going to the workplace … [the figures] did show higher levels than normal absences due to illness,” he said.

Mr Oliver said that the rise in absences could potentially point to employee behaviours that have arisen during the pandemic-era style of working.

“There is always that risk that the pandemic with working from home and isolating may have the effect of legitimising in some people’s minds to taking sickies.

“That’s a risk we won’t really know the answer until Covid-19 goes away and that could be a long time,” Dr Oliver said.

A surge in Covid-19 cases could be to blame for a rise in sick days and reduced hours worked.

While sickies were the popular excuse away from work, reasons like annual leave, flexitime and long service leave decreased 489,000 to 842,000 people to the surprise of Westpac researchers given clear weather.

The proportion of people taking annual leave sat at 6.1 per cent, down from the pre-pandemic average of 6.7 per cent for December.

“It’s a time when some people take leave but don’t go anywhere. If they’ve found the weather particularly through December was a bit hit and miss … people might have decided not to take that leave they were planning to take,” Dr Oliver said about the softened annual leave figures.

“There may also be people thinking they had enough time at home through the pandemic lockdown period so they’ll leave that holiday later in the year when they can go away … The pandemic may have dismayed people from taking leave.”

AMP chief economist Shane Oliver. Picture: Supplied

Westpac’s report comes as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) recorded hours worked decreased by 9.5 million hours or 0.5 per cent between November and December last year.

Employment decreased by 14,600 people.

While the proportion of people working reduced hours because of illness was 1.3 points higher than the pre-pandemic December average, other reasons were in line with the usual figures seen for the month.

Australia’s unemployment is likely to rise to 3.9 per cent by the end of the year – higher than the 3.7 per cent forecast by the RBA – and to 4.5 per cent by 2024 as the economic environment changes, according to Moody’s Analytics forecasts.

The unemployment rate in December was unchanged at 3.5 per cent, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released on Thursday, which was higher than the market had expected.

Originally published as The reason why employees are pulling more sick days