The line graph below illustrates the percentage of employees that took a sick leave with a day or more in 5 European countries during the period of time between 1991 and 2001.
Overall, the percentage of workers with illness absence in Sweden, France and the Netherlands showed a significant change, whereas other countries including the United Kingdom, and Germany remained stable only showing some fluctuations throughout the analyzed period. Moreover Germany had the least percentage of employees with absence reason of illness in the beggining, and the Netherlands had the highest.
As for Sweden, France and the Netherlands they showed a considerable change between 1991 and 2001. Sweden’s percentage of employees with a sick leave was in the second place with workers that had illness absence compared to other countries in 1991 accounting for 5%. From then onwards, this percentage signifcantly droppedto nearly 3% in 2001, and only showed an increase in 1991 to approximately 3.5%. Meanwhile, France had the third-highest number of sick days recorded in the graph comprising only 3%. However this figure demonstrated the most dramatic increase, reaching nearly 5% within 10 years, a growth of 2%. While the Netherlands was in the first place with the highest number of recorded sick days accounting for 5%. After a while, the Netherlands percentage fluctuated, hitting the lowest point in 1996 with the percentage below 4%, and then showed an upward trend reaching 6% in 2001. Notably, the Netherlands still stayed in the first place of countries with the most highest number of employees that took a sick leave.
As regards other countries including the UK, and Germany the number of employees with a day or more illness absence remained steady, but fluctuated throughout the analyzed period. The United Kingdom had the fourth-place, and Germany had the least percentage with workers that had sick leave. The UK accounting 2.5%, showed almost the same results with the Germany that had the percentage accounting with nearly 1.5%. What is more, the United Kingdom was the only country that was approximately unchanged throughout the analyzed period.