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Drop in Worker Absences - Eversheds Comment

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Following the study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development revealing a sharp decline in employee absence in the private sector, opening up a wider gap with the public sector, Huw Rolant Jones, partner at international law firm Eversheds comments:
“It is worth noting that a much larger proportion of public sector employers actually record absence levels amongst staff, over 84% as against just 60% of private employers doing so. Even so, the rate of absence in this sector appears to remain consistently higher than in the private sector. Despite a drop in absence rate in the public sector in recent years, it will be interesting to see if this downward trend continues following a landmark judgement of the House of Lords last month. The Lords ruled that conditions or illnesses which have not yet lasted a year to be considered "long term" in nature but ‘could well’ do so, will now qualify as potential disabilities for the purposes of our disability discrimination legislation. Conditions such as stress and back problems, which continue to be amongst the most prevalent causes of absence, particularly in the public sector, will lead more employees to potentially fall within disability discrimination protection. In turn, this may increase absence levels, as well as require employers to be far more aware of reasons for absence and more flexible and accommodating in their responses if they are to avoid being on the receiving end of allegations of disability discrimination.
“This will of course have to be balanced against the financial pressures increasingly impacting on the public sector which will require proactive management of absence and capability issues.”

Eversheds LLP
Eversheds LLP and its world wide offices have over 3,500 legal and business advisers providing services to the private and public sector business and finance community. Access to all these services is provided through 47 international offices in 29 jurisdictions. Eversheds combines local market knowledge and access with the specialisms, resources and international capability of one of the world’s largest law firms.
For more information, please vist http://www.eversheds.com