Sickness absence rate

The sickness absence rate is defined as the total number of days employees are absent from work due to illness expressed as a percentage of the total number of working days available in the reporting period.

This article includes figures on sickness absence of Dutch residents employed in the private or public sector in the Netherlands. The sickness absence rate is based on a survey among employees, the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey (NEA). The survey collects data on the number of sickness absence days of respondents in the past year. The NEA is conducted by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

Another information source on sickness absence is the quarterly survey on sickness absence. In this survey, the sickness absence rate is based on a sample among employees in the private sector. There are minor differences between the figures provided by these two sources, because:

• the sources are based on two separate samples;
• the sample populations vary marginally with respect to age limits and origin of the employees; unlike in the quarterly survey, for example, foreign resident employees are included in the NEA;
• sickness absence of employees may be interpreted in a different manner in the NEA, compared to the quarterly survey; in zero hour contracts, for example, not working due to sickness may be interpreted as sickness absence, even if the employee is not on call; companies, on the other hand, may not define this situation as absence from work.