Thirty percent fewer take sick leave after change in benefits system

Thirty percent fewer Czechs took sick leave from work in 2009 than in the previous year, according to figures from the country’s social welfare authority quoted by Lidové noviny. Figures for last year were as much as 40 percent lower than in 2007, the newspaper said. The fall is evidently due to a change in the benefits system under which no money is paid during the first three days of an illness. The man behind that change, former social affairs minister Petr Necaš, said absenteeism in the Czech Republic had simply fallen to normal levels for European Union states.

Author: Ian Willoughby