Esteban Mate participates in the preparation of a report on absenteeism together with the Social Justice Foundation
Work absenteeism in Spain reached an equivalent rate of 5.21% in 2025, according to the report “Absenteeism in Spain: an imbalance between labor rights and productivity”, prepared by the General Council of Social Graduates of Spain through the Social Justice Foundation and which has had the participation of Fraternidad-Muprespa, through the analysis of Esteban Mate, Deputy Director General of Management of the Mutual Fund. The social graduate has also collaborated in its preparation Juan Panella.
Consult the reportand the report summary
Mate highlighted that “As there are no easy and immediate solutions, a calm debate on Absenteeism is necessary that focuses on proposing improvements to inefficient aspects or that promote a change in the current growing trend.”.
The document reveals that the percentage of sick leave among workers protected in the General Regime went from 3.41% in 2019 to 5.81% in 2025, which represents an increase of 70.43% in just six years. In addition, the processes initiated grew by 14.4%, reaching 926,394 files, while active processes exceeded 1.24 million at the end of the year.
The average monthly incidence stood at 40.89 processes per thousand workers, a figure that confirms the intensity and persistence of the phenomenon.
Among the factors that explain this increase, the document highlights the aging of the working population (1.5 million more members between 50 and 64 years old since 2019) and a growth in the group of those over 64 years old (+160.35%).
It also points out the impact of the digitalization of sick leave, the expansion of conciliation permits, regulatory changes and the saturation of primary care, which accumulates average waits of 17.5 days to obtain an appointment.
Added to this is the generalization of conventional temporary disability supplements, which in some sectors reach 100% of the real salary from the first day or from the first sick leave of the year.
The report identifies three large groups of pathologies that account for between 65% and 70% of structural absenteeism: musculoskeletal disorders, mental disorders and neoplastic disorders. The former represent 45.5% of the total number of people on sick leave, while mental health and psychosocial risks account for 20.3%.
The economic impact is equally significant: public spending on temporary disability reached 16,500 million euros in 2024, and Social Security maintains a negative net worth of 106,138.7 million euros.
The study suggests that the solution is to improve control, reintegration and prevention mechanisms, and not to cut benefits, addressing work absenteeism as a technical, comprehensive and preventive challenge, which must be placed at the center of the country's labor and social agenda.
