Workplace presence, wages and employment

The determining factors of wages and employment are multifaceted and complex. In this report, we take a closer look at various forms of absence from work, such as leave of absence, sick leave, continuing education and (partial) withdrawal of work assessment allowance, to examine the association between presence at work and the aforementioned labor market outcomes.

Using detailed register data spanning 2016 to 2019, we find that there is an association between these outcomes, but that they differ for different types of absence from work. The most common type of absence is sick leave, and here we find that those with longer sick leave spells are employed to a lesser extent than the rest of the population, while the opposite is true for shorter spells. In addition, this group has lower wages compared to the rest of the population.

We find a similar association among employees who receive (partial) work assessment allowance, except that here employment increases with the spell length. Among those with leave of absence and continuing education, we find that they are more likely to be employed after the spell ends than among those without any absence from work. Furthermore, we find that these two groups generally have higher wages than those who do not have a spell of absence from work.