The given lines chart illustrates the proportion of workers that were absent for one day or more because of sickness in five European countries between 1991 and 2001.
Overall, it is clear that the quantity of workers absent in Netherlands, Sweden and the UK witnessed an upward trend, while the opposite figure was true for workers that took one or more days off in France and Germany. Additionally, workers that were off in the Netherlands had the highest proportion in 2001.
In the initial year, standing at 5% the figure for employees with sickness absence in France took the lead. However, it experienced a dramatic decline by over 2% from 1992 to 1996, after that the figure for employees with sickness off in France remained stable around 3% during a 5-year later period. At the same time, before hitting the low to 4%, workers’ sickness absence increased rapidly to approximately 6% in 1992. In 2001, it bounced back to the same proportion in 1992. Similarly, workers taking days off because of illness in Sweden remained unchanged over 3% in the first 4 years, and it reached a peak of 5% in the final year.
Both figures for employees taking time off due to sickness in the UK and Germany stood at 2% in 2001, over twice lower than that of the figure for employees with illness absence in Netherlands and France. Over the following year, this proportion in the UK rose minimally less than 3%, and stayed unchanged to the senior years. Meanwhile, a slight downward trend to under 2% was recorded by employees that were taking days off in Germany.