Antoni Cañete: Catalonia renounces resources it has to improve the management of leaves

BarcelonaAntoni Cañete i Martos (Barcelona, 1963), has been the president of the employers' association Pimec since February 2021. With him, we review the recent controversy with the Minister of Health, Olga Pané, who withdrew a measure that had been well received by employers' associations: encouraging CAPs to reduce the number of work absences. We also analyze the process of regularization of foreigners that has been launched, as well as the consequences of the war in Iran for companies.

Absenteeism has become the great battlehorse of all employers' associations. Is the problem really that serious? Is there that much absenteeism?

— It seems that talking about absenteeism means speaking ill of workers, when in reality absenteeism is a very broad term. When we started asking companies about their problems, the first thing they talked about was finding people. But the second problem was about absenteeism. No one had dared to address it. We conducted a study. And in February 2024, we were the first organization in Catalonia and the entire State to put down in black and white, with data, the issue of work absences, which is a part of absenteeism.

Isn't absenteeism too broad a concept, that includes too many things, and that a justified medical leave is not the same as absenteeism?

— That's why the nuance is important. We could talk about absence, the hours worked for which payment is made. We are looking for something very specific and registered, which is sick leave in IT [temporary incapacity] which is a part of absenteeism. And from here is when the dimension of the tragedy began to be seen.

Are too many casualties occurring?

— No, let's treat it with rigor and seriousness. When we first look at the data on sick leave in IT, what we detect is that in Spain it's very high, and Navarra and Catalonia are at 6% and Extremadura at 1.9%. It's curious, isn't it?

There will be some cause.

— Looking at the evolution of the data, we observe that there is a very significant increase and a much more significant concentration in Catalonia than in other territories. We detect that this problem has its bottlenecks. And what do we do? We talk to the unions, to the College of Physicians, and to the administrations. When we delve deeper into the data, we saw that they occur for many reasons. The age of the population is an element to consider. Furthermore, we saw that the type of economic sector also has an impact. But what we detect is that we have a problem in the system: our treatment and care times are much longer than in other territories.

Therefore, is there a bottleneck in the healthcare system?

— Yes. There is a bottleneck in the healthcare system. Detected and focused. This has a very significant cost. It has it for people, first of all, who in some cases are not attended to when they are ill or who, in some way, are not treated correctly. This also has a cost for all of us, a social cost, and for companies. A study by Airef assures that this has a cost for the country of 30,000 million euros, approximately, for the public part. And when PIMEC has done the complementary part of what it means, in this case, in Spain, for the private part, it is 32,000 million euros more. We are talking about a cost of 62,000 million euros due to work absences. Therefore, it is clear that we must dedicate resources, and above all, that people are well.

And how can the solutions arrive?

— The first step is to recognize that we have a problem. Our GDP is not growing because we are improving competitiveness or productivity, but because we are incorporating more people into the labor market. Therefore, the element we must address is to make our companies competitive. We must be able to pay better salaries, but, for that, we need very productive, very competitive companies. This debate is not minor. The expression "I'm going to take sick leave" should not be normalized. I want to bring to the table the debate about what the Government did when it put up posters in the CAPs indicating that Catalonia represents 17% of affiliation and at the same time 25% of work absences. Responsible use of public resources must be made. There are resources to improve the primary system in some way that we are returning year after year to the State. Catalonia has 60 million to generate dynamics that can improve the management of all this in the CAPs and, since we do not use them in some way, we return them. The Government proposed using these resources in a way we agreed with: so that people are better attended to and better treated. These resources are for that. What Pimec proposes is to be able to use them so that people are treated on time when they are sick. Also, that the necessary tests are done as soon as possible. These situations pose a problem for people, and also have a consequence on their work activity. This is not asking for sick leave not to be given, it is a discourse of giving it thinking about the person.

And these resources are?

— There they are and we have made the decision after an ideological situation whether to return them or not use them because what the minister had done and what had been said is: we want to use them to improve primary care, which is where the bottleneck is.

This was to encourage the CAPs.

— What does management mean? To treat patients who are somewhat ill first and to be able to perform tests on them more appropriately.

This can also create a problem if you treat workers better or sooner.

— There is no talk of workers here, what is said is: we have some resources and what can we do to make the system efficient. Possibly, what we can do is better management, that treatments are done a little earlier so that people can be cured more quickly. This has been reversed.

Could mutuals help?

— What is inexplicable is that the system is collapsing and having the mutual availability to be able to uncollapse it, it is not authorized.

With the resources we have, could the entire issue of processing and waiting lists be accelerated?

— More than 60% of long-term sick leave in Spain is in Catalonia. This means that there is a person who is sick and on leave and whose long-term leave must be reviewed to see if they are able to return to work. It is a problem for the person and a problem for the company. Pimec, in the budget proposal, proposed to allocate resources to improve the management of ICAM. And 10 million were allocated, which we agreed with the unions. With 10 million, more than 6,000 cases have been resolved. Now the Government is withdrawing the proposal to use these resources to improve where we have the bottleneck. What does Pimec propose? A non-ideological debate, I will be, with the Government, the parties, the unions and us, as agents and interlocutors, to carry out, in some way, the analysis of the situation and not return the money. People must be given sick leave. And we will be the first to ask for it, to demand it. We have done it for IT, we have done it for long-term sick leave, but what we cannot afford is not to address the problem. Because, if we address this issue and do it well, we will have well-treated people, with the tests and, therefore, curing them, which is the most important thing.

And this with the population increasingly aging.

— We must accept it. Society is changing a lot. The system has to be sustainable, pensions, our welfare state has to be sustainable. And that's why we need to create wealth, create activities, be competitive. And people what they need are good salaries. That inflation is causing us is that people every day have more problems, like the issue of housing.

All this links with the regularization process, which can serve to rejuvenate this workforce.

— Between the years 2020 and 2023, we lost 50,000 registered people available for work. Active population. 50,000 fewer people. And 280,000 jobs were created between the year 2020 and the year 2023. Registered data of new employment. If 330,000 migrants had not come, we would not have been able to fill these 330,000 jobs that we need, which is the primary problem for not losing activity and for not losing, in some way, resources and income. Therefore, the debate is this, whether you like it or not: immigration is necessary.

And, consequently, this regularization process makes sense.

— The situation we currently have, with immigrant people, not regularized, without papers, is a problem. We need immigration and we need it regulated. They are people who are in an irregular situation and who often have to be incorporated precariously. And this, what does it do? Perhaps they don't contribute. In Catalonia, the population has gone from 6 million to 8 million inhabitants. And many of them, in some way, have come due to an immigrant population. We need immigration and we need it regulated. Now, we have to regularize it, and we have to regularize it well. Therefore, this regularization must be accompanied by resources. Resources, first, to make it administratively correct, so that there is no administrative bottleneck. According to the data, we are talking about 500,000 people. This is regularizing a lot of people. And then, providing them with resources, because what must be provided to these people is training for integration. Because if these people remain unemployed and are not employable, we will have a problem for the system. We are already working on the first European project, jointly with Italy and Greece, for hiring at the source. And we are already working in Egypt and we are working in Morocco to hire at the source. We also say that we must promote circular migration. Therefore, immigration, yes, regulated, yes, with resources, yes, and, furthermore, with systems that can allow hiring at the source. And also circular migration, which is what we have practiced all our lives. People who come because there is work and return to their country, because people want to be in their country.

How does the war in Iran impact SMEs?

— The geopolitical situation impacts us in a very general way, because today it is a global issue, but it reaches us in a particular way, especially SMEs. And, as happens in all matters like these, to the weakest part of the chain: the self-employed. It cannot be, in the first week, that the price of oil increases to 94 dollars a barrel, and in one week, the price of diesel or energy supply rises to the same level that it took six weeks when the war in Ukraine and the barrel was at 144 dollars. Someone is not doing things right. If in the energy issue, we do not have such dependence, how is it possible that the translation in our inflation is practically one point above the European average? And if we do not control our inflation in some way, we lose competitiveness, and people, in some way, have less income availability. And they will have less consumption. If they have less consumption, activity will stop, therefore, GDP will decrease.