Fifty two percent of South African employees who were booked off sick this winter had respiratory illnesses, which included influenza, a survey released on Friday revealed.
An analysis made of 60 South African companies with a total of 7 000 employees revealed that out of 2 877 people who took time off between May and August this year, 1 489 had flu, said Corporate Absenteeism Management Solutions CEO Johnny Johnson. This amounted to 52% of the workforce.
”We also know that these individuals took a total of 2 280 days off out of a total of 13 914 days taken for sick leave in the months May, June, July and August.”
This meant that flu accounted for 16% of total days absent for the South African workforce.
”According to the statistics, the average incident of flu lasted 2,4 days … with the highest number of days taken for a single incident being 15 days.”
Johnson said the 15 days taken for flu were ”way above average”.
”Unfortunately, flu and respiratory illnesses are one of those things we will never be able to control completely.”
He said, however, that the number of employees taken ill due to flu had been ”relatively stable” over the past five years due to wellness programmes.
The absenteeism data analysed was collected from sick certificates issued by medical doctors. — Sapa