Sickness absence, Q4 2010

This decrease may well be caused by a high level of sickness absence in 2009 due to the swine flu that year. Compared with 2008 - where there was no swine flu - the sickness absence level is unchanged.

Doctor-certified sickness absence fell from 6.4 to 6 per cent from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2010; a reduction of 6.6 per cent. Self-certified sickness absence was reduced from 1.2 to 1.1 per cent; a reduction of 12.1 per cent.

Sickness absence in the fourth quarter of 2010 was 6.4 per cent lower than in the fourth quarter of 2001, the year of implementation of the agreement on an inclusive labour market.

Effects of swine flu

The decrease in the diagnosis group "Sickness in the bronchiae", which among other diagnoses also includes influenza, seems to explain about 65 per cent of the decrease in the doctor-certified sickness absence man-days. We do not have information about diagnoses in the self-certified sickness absence, but if we assume that all the reduction is caused by the swine flu, then about 75 per cent of the decrease in the sickness absence man-days is caused by the flu.

Statistics Norway does not have tables divided into different diagnosis groups, since we do not have access to this kind of data. We therefore refer to The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration .

The effect of the swine flu is difficult to estimate in different groups, such as gender, industry etc. When we, from now on, make comments on the figures, we do not take the flu into consideration, nor do we try to adjust the figures. In spite of this, we still get a clear decrease in the sickness absence in most of the groups.

Strongest reduction for men

Sickness absence for men decreased from 6.1 to 5.5 per cent from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2010, and for women it fell from 9.4 to 8.8 per cent. This equals a percentual drop of 9.1 and 6.3 per cent respectively.

Major reduction in accommodation and food service activities

All of the industries showed a decrease in sickness absence from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2010. Among the major industries, the decline was greatest in the accommodation and food service industry and the information and communication industry, by 14.9 and 14.3 per cent respectively. Human health and social work activities had the smallest decline, by 3.5 per cent.

Private sector had the strongest decrease

Sickness absence in the private sector had the strongest reduction by 8.2 per cent. The absences in central government (including health enterprises) and local government were reduced by 6.4 and 6.3 per cent respectively.

The sickness absence was lowest in central government and the private sector with 6.6 per cent, and highest in local government with 8.7 per cent.

Strong decrease among the youngest

Sickness absence fell within all age groups last year. The decrease for women was strongest among the youngest groups (below 25 years), with 12.4 per cent. For men, the strongest fall was in the age group below 29 years and in the age group 35-39 years.

These results are based on data on sickness absence certified by a doctor, as the survey on self-certified absence does not contain data on sickness absence by age.

Tables:

Tables

Published tables