Las empresas afrontan a la vuelta del verano el 35% de las bajas que se producen en el año

During the first two days of the workweek, Monday and Tuesday, account for 46% of all absences. A study by Airef found that 25% of employees take more than half of their absences, while 50% account for 77% of all episodes. Absences due to temporary incapacity also show a tendency to cluster by month and day of the week. According to the latest annual study by the Association of Accident Insurance Mutuelles (AMAT) with 2025 data, January (11.42%), December (9.45%), and October (9.09%) had the highest volume of initiated processes, totaling 1,898,967 absences, which is nearly 30% (29.96%) of the annual total.

In the last quarter of 2025 (September to December), 2,217,730 processes were initiated, representing 35% of the year's total. Specifically, September accounts for 8.06% of the year's absences, October for 9.09%, November for 8.39%, and December for 9.45%. Conversely, the three months with the fewest initiated absences are August (5.78%), April (7.07%), and July (7.52%), totaling 1,291,464 absences, representing 20.37% of the annual total.

When considering the day of the week, Monday has the highest concentration of temporary incapacity absences at 26.65%, followed by Tuesday (19.56%), Wednesday (17.72%), Thursday (16.49%), Friday (13.51%), and the weekend (6.07%). The first two days of the workweek (Monday and Tuesday) account for 46% of all absences. It is worth noting that with the start of the political term, the issue of absenteeism will once again dominate much of the agenda of the Ministry of Social Security, which has opened a negotiating table with the patronage and unions to explore measures that could mitigate the economic impact of absenteeism: 33 billion euros per year in benefits and direct cost to employers.

The patronage has recently pressed the government to take measures regarding the impact on the economy of businesses, productivity, and the organizational impact, particularly for small businesses. In this regard, one of the elements that the patronage has put at the center of its target, in this case for an eventual negotiation of the Employment and Collective Negotiation Agreement (AENC) with the unions, is the possibility of redistributing the salary supplements agreed in the agreements for temporary incapacity processes.

Of the total cost of 34 billion euros, over 16.1 billion are assumed directly by businesses through Social Security contributions (9.351 billion), salary supplements agreed in agreements to cover up to 100% of the salary (4.838 billion), and direct provision between days 4 and 15 of the absence. In light of this economic and productivity impact -with 1.2 million employees absent daily due to medical absence-, the patronage (CEOE) is calling for a reduction of these burdens on employers and proposes reviewing these retributive supplements in collective negotiation (present in 65% of company agreements and 50% of sectoral agreements), while some companies already link them to absence absence rates or compliance with medical procedures.