Source : National Social Security Office
A country’s social climate can be gauged by different indicators such as rates of absenteeism, the number of days lost to strikes, employee satisfaction levels and workforce retention.
Over the period 2009-2019, the whole of the chemicals and life sciences sector recorded an average of 22,737 strike days per year, equivalent to 0.25 of a day per year per employee (compared to 0.27 day per year for the manufacturing industry as whole).
According to a recent study by human resources specialist Securex (2020), there was a relatively high absenteeism rate among blue-collar workers in the chemicals and life sciences sector in 2019 (1.6 sickness notifications per blue-collar worker compared with an average of 1.1 for all Belgian employees). This difference has remained fairly constant in recent years. Absenteeism among the sector’s white-collar workforce is similar to levels in the rest of the economy.
The Securex study of staff turnover confirms that employees in the sector have a high degree of company loyalty: only 2.5% of employees in the sector left their company voluntarily in 2019, compared with an average of 5.1% across the private sector as a whole.
