The Malakoff Humanis annual barometer, published Thursday, September 8, reveals the growing weight of psychosocial risks at work.
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Private companies have almost returned to their level of absenteeism before COVID, but the mental health of employees is deteriorating, indicates the annual barometer of the Malakoff Humanis mutual group, published Thursday, September 8. A dive into the results of the study since 2016 demonstrates this trend, year after year.
No alarmism. The majority of employees are well: 54 % of the 1,800 people interviewed between May 5 and 30 believe they are in good physical and mental health. In the long term, the number of absentees for illness is relatively stable. 42 % of the employees interviewed were prescribed a work stoppage in the last twelve months, against 44 % in 2019 and 41 % in 2016. The most vulnerable remain young (18-34 years) and women. Paradoxically, the older we are, the less sick leave.
But the nature of absences changes, characterizing a deterioration in the mental health of employees, especially among the youngest. Except COVID, work stoppages for psychological disorders or professional exhaustion are the only ones to progress regularly. They increased from 15 % in 2020 to 17 % in 2021 and 20 % in 2022. Or an out of five stops. “It was one in ten in 2016 … A real clear progression,” comments Anne-Sophie Godon, Director of Services at Malakoff Humanis.
In 18-34 year olds, the prescribed stops for psychological disorders (depression, anxiety, stress, professional exhaustion, burn-out …) jumped: from 9 % in 2016 to 19 % in 2022. These last three years , the consumption of sleeping pills, anxiolytics or antidepressants has doubled among employees under the age of 30, specifies the Department of Strategic Studies of the Mutualist. “Fatigue, stress at work, unbalanced private life-professional life … A number of risk factors have increased in recent years for young people”, analyzes M me Godon.
First cause of long stops
The mental health of employees has thus become the second reason for sick leave outside the covid, just behind the all-round of ordinary conditions (colds, flu, angina, gastroenteritis, etc.). Psychological disorders are now at the origin of more sickness stops than musculoskeletal disorders, accidents and trauma.
Mental pathologies have even become the first cause of long stops. Absences of more than a month (excluding COVID) represent only 14 % of the prescribed judgments, but they affect the majority of companies: 64 % of them have experienced at least one long stop in the last twelve months. This is not without posing major organizational problems, 30 % of the companies interviewed replacing their employees only from a month of absence. And recruitment difficulties are increasingly affecting sectors.
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