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Spike in employee sick leave due to mental illness

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© Keystone / Christian Beutler

Work stoppages due to mental illness are at a record high in Switzerland.

According to an assessment cited on Sunday by the NZZ am Sonntag, work breaks due to mental health issues have increased by 20% this year compared to 2021.

According to Andreas Heimer of PK Rück, a company specialising in pension fund reinsurance, this is not a catch-up effect after the Covid pandemic but a structural one. The cases that have been identified are serious: on average, an affected worker is absent for 11 months.

New kinds of mental illnesses are being reported by employees such as post-traumatic stress disorders, adjustment disorders, fatigue syndrome and post-Covid syndrome. This could have a knock-on effect on the number of people claiming disability insurance. Last year, the number of new disability insurance claimants rose by 16%, and one in two of these cases was of psychological origin.

Le Matin Dimanche, which also reports on this significant increase in sick leave for psychological reasons, states that 70% of those affected are in employment. Economic losses linked to these illnesses are estimated at more than CHF20 billion each year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
 

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