Esteban Mate, deputy director of Fraternidad-Muprespa, analyzes the causes of absenteeism with UIB experts
with the title "Absenteeism from work: in the eye of the hurricane" This Wednesday the 25th, a conference organized by Fraternidad-Muprespa, in collaboration with the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) took place in online format, a meeting focused on how increasingly affects the economy and Spanish companies and brought together nearly half a thousand attendees.
Erik José Monreal, professor of Labor Law (Department of Public Law) at the UIB Law Faculty, welcomed the attendees and underlined the complexity of the regulatory framework and the existence of legal security gaps around temporary disability. He also gave way to the main speakers,Esteban Mate, Deputy Director General of Management of Fraternidad-Muprespa, and Maria del Mar Crespí, Permanent Professor of Labor Law at the UIB, and thanked Marian Sbert, Provincial Director of Fraternidad-Muprespa in the Balearic Islands, the initiative to celebrate the day.
X-ray of absenteeism in Spain
Mate began his intervention by highlighting that work absenteeism in Spain reaches a structural 5.4% according to data from November 2025 published by Social Security. 93% of these absences are due to absences due to common contingencies. Among the most frequent causes are musculoskeletal pathologies (45%) followed by mental pathologies (20%) and neoplasms (7%), and it is observed that these absences coincide with festive periods such as Christmas, Easter and national long weekends, which suggests a relationship between the calendar and the behavior of absenteeism.
Mate also questioned whether the progressive increase in absenteeism since 2012 really responds to a deterioration in health.since the incidence of serious pathologies has barely changed while mild and mental illnesses have grown, although not in proportion to absenteeism”.
He also stated that there are socioeconomic factors that could influence the duration of sick leave and highlighted that the aging of the active population and the collapse of the health system - waiting lists that have gone from three and a half million to almost five million and from eighty to one hundred days of waiting - contribute to lengthening the temporary disability processes, especially when the INSS does not resolve within a year.“This reality” explained, “adds 1.1 points to the national absenteeism that could be reduced to 4.3% if the INSS resolved on day 365 and not later”.
Regulatory changes and business management
María del Mar Crespí, for her part, focused on the latest regulatory changes around the topic that focused the day, and began by ensuring that the management of work absenteeism has evolved in recent years, mainly reinforcing worker protection, especially since 2018 with data protection regulations, which limits access and use of health information, and introduces the right to digital disconnection.
In 2021, a bonus was incorporated for the sick leave of workers over 62 years of age with the aim of reducing the economic impact for companies, given that this group has a higher level of absenteeism. In 2022, electronic management of temporary disability reports was implemented, which improved efficiency, reduced fraud and eliminated conflicts over the delivery of receipts.
More recently, companies have been allowed to provide information to the INSS about the employee's job, such as their duties or possible adaptations, which facilitates a more accurate assessment of whether the illness really prevents work.
Regarding the margin of business action, companies can require that the worker communicate his absence, establish contact protocols during sick leave and design reinstatement measures, but not force the worker to return to work or give work instructions during temporary disability, as this would violate the law.
From the point of view of collective bargaining, the number of agreements that improve economic benefits during sick leave have increased, especially after the pandemic, which can generate disincentive effects on work.
Crespí mentioned that the Supreme Court has considered salary supplements that reward only attendance at work to be discriminatory, “Therefore, companies must manage absenteeism, mainly through organizational, preventive and collective bargaining measures, rather than through direct economic incentives.”.
After the interventions, Marian Sbert collected some questions asked by the attendees to be answered by the speakers, questions that were from the analysis of factors related to shifts, night shifts or working conditions, to promote prevention through health checks orscreeningto detect diseases early. Finally, fraud control mechanisms were mentioned, such as medical check-ups through Social Security Collaborating Mutual Funds or private services, and the use of public information such as that shared on social networks.
