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Number of sick days drop across manufacturing industry, says EEF
(WebFG News) - The overall number of work days missed by employees due to sickness dropped to 2.2% in 2017 across the manufacturing industry, according to the latest Sickness Absence Benchmark from EEF, the manufacturers' organisation.
The absence rate was down just slightly from the 2.3% figure posted in the previous year as the average number of days lost to sickness per employee also fell to 5.0, down from 5.3 in 2016.
At an average of 6.1 days, manual employees lost more than double the number of days to sickness absence than those in non-manual roles, who missed an average of just 3.0 days a year.
EEF's Sickness Absence Benchmark revealed a slight variance in days missed across sectors, as the rubber, plastics and chemicals sector had the highest average number of days absent at 5.5, while the metals sector reported the lowest, at 4.7 per employee in 2017.
There were differences in the number sick days taken between larger and smaller companies too, as companies with a workforce of up to 50 witnessing employees miss an average of 3.7 days per year each, as opposed to companies with more than 500 employees seeing staff miss around 7.3 days in 2016.
Terry Woolmer, head of health and safety policy at EEF, said, "Unplanned leave from staff is something firms look to minimise as it has disruptive and costly consequences for workforce productivity and morale. The small fall in absence rate is, therefore, a positive sign for the sector."
"Whilst staff missing work for sickness is inevitable, gathering as much information as possible and comparing company data to wider trends across the sector is essential for tackling any absence issues before they grow into a larger concern. Today's data, showing absence rates are slowly declining, indicates that manufacturers are doing just that," he added.