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

BarcelonaAntoni Cañete i Martos (Barcelona, 1963), is 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 primary care centers 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 businesses.

Absence has become the great battlehorse of all employers' associations. Is the problem really that serious? Is there so 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 did a study. And in February 2024, we were the first organization in Catalonia and the entire State to put in writing, with data, the issue of work absences, which is a part of absenteeism.

Absenteeism is not too broad a concept, which includes too many things and that a justified medical sick leave is not the same as absenteeism?

— That's why nuance is important. We could talk about absence, the hours worked for which payment is made. We looked for something very specific and that is 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 there too many low scores?

— No, let's approach 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 is 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 note that there is a very significant increase and a much more important 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 delved 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 detected 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 a cost for people, first of all, who in some cases are not attended to when they are sick or who, in some way, are not treated correctly. This also has a cost for all of us, a social cost, and for businesses. A study by Airef assures that this has a cost for the country of 30,000 million euros, approximately, for the public sector. And when PIMEC has done the complementary part of what it means, in this case, in Spain, for the private sector, it is another 32,000 million euros. We are talking about a cost of 62,000 million euros for work absences. Therefore, of course we have to dedicate resources, and above all, that people are well.

And how can 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 making 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 stating that Catalonia represents 17% of affiliation and at the same time 25% of work absences. Responsible use must be made of public resources. 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 issue in the CAPs and, as we do not use them in some way, we return them. The Government proposed using these resources in a way that we agreed with: so that people are better attended and better treated. That's what these resources are for. What Pimec proposes is to be able to use them so that people are treated in time when they are sick. Also, that they are given the necessary tests as soon as possible. These situations pose a problem for people, and they 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 with the person in mind.

And are these resources there?

— They are here and we have made the decision after an ideological situation to return them or not use them because what the counselor 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 CAP.

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

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

— We are not talking about workers here, what is being 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 pushed back.

Could the mutuals help with that?

— What makes no sense is that the system is collapsing and having mutual availability to be able to uncollapse it, is not authorized.

With the resources we have, could the whole 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 ill and is on sick leave and whose long-term sick leave must be reviewed to see if they are in a condition to return to work. It is a problem for the person and it is a problem for the company. Pimec, in the budget proposal, proposed allocating 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, serious debate with the Government, the parties, the unions, and us, as agents and interlocutors, to carry out, in some way, an analysis of the situation and not return the money. Sick leave must be granted to people. 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 people well treated, with the tests and, therefore, cured, which is the most important thing.

And this with the population getting older and older.

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

All this ties in with the regularization process, which can help to rejuvenate this workforce.

— Between 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 2020 and 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 first problem to avoid losing activity and, 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 current situation we have, of 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 join in a precarious way. And what does this 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 from an immigrant population. We need immigration and we need it regulated. Now, we have to regularize them, and we have to regularize them well. Therefore, this regularization must be accompanied by resources. Resources, first, to make it administratively correct, so that there isn't an administrative bottleneck. According to the data, we're talking about 500,000 people. This is regularizing a lot of people. And then, provide 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 recruitment at the source. And we are already working in Egypt and we are working in Morocco to do recruitment 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 recruitment 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 Iran war 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 for SMEs. And, as happens in all such matters, to the weakest part of the chain: the self-employed. It cannot be that, in the first week, 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 we do not have such a dependence in the energy sector, how is it possible that the translation into 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.