Extremely low occurrences of short-term sick leave in Czech Republic in 2009

2010-08-24

2009 saw a rapid decrease in occurrences of short-term sick leave – the average rate of people being off sick reached 4.18%, which is the lowest level recorded since early 1960’s, reported the Czech Institute of Health Information and Statistics (UZIS) based on data collected by the Czech Statistical Office (CSU).
Low levels of short-term sick leave taken in 2009 were largely influenced by the changes in the legislation regulating sickness benefits. Some employees preferred taking regular leave whilst being ill, rather than receiving low sickness benefits or no benefits at all in case of sickness shorter than four days. In contrast, it was found that the average length of sick leave was extended by 6 days, standing at 45 days.
A total of 1.44 million cases of sick leave were reported in 2009. The Czech Republic has a population of 10.5 million.
Illness was a cause for temporary sick leave in over 90% of all cases, whilst in 3.5% of cases it was caused by work-related injury and in 6%, by other type of injury.