The plague of sick leave. Three industries in Poland have a huge problem

In the economy, the highest sickness absence occurs in construction (8.77%), logistics (7.69%) and services (7.20%), reports the portal Praw.pl, citing the Sickness Absence Barometer 2025 report. Experts point out that issuing L4 sick leave is less and less the result of real health problems, and more and more often results from the way work is organized and real conflicts in the company, which means increasing operational costs.

According to Prawa.pl, the highest levels of sickness absence are observed in industries requiring shift work, working under time pressure and high team flexibility.

“The differences between industries make it clear that sickness absence is not solely the result of seasonal infections. It increasingly reflects the way work is organized, the level of pressure and management style. Where the work environment is more structured and predictable, sickness absence rates are significantly lower,” says Mikołaj Zając, president of Conperio, a Polish consulting company specializing in sickness absence, and a labor market expert quoted by Prawa.pl.

Prawa.pl reports that a high level of sickness absence often goes hand in hand with:

• overload of teams,
• staff shortages,
• operational pressure
• organizational problems.

Interestingly, 44 percent one-day sick leave falls on Mondays and Fridays, which indicates a strong connection with the organization of work and the cycle of the week. In total, in 2025, 27.5 million sick leaves were issued in Poland for over 290 million days.

“The biggest mistake is to treat sickness absence as individual cases. Only the analysis of patterns between teams, days of the week or seasonality allows us to understand the problem and limit its scale,” Mikołaj Zając told the Prawa.pl portal.