Sick leaves and laziness (journalistic)

The issue of absenteeism at work is ambiguous, even from the name, because the label encompasses unjustified absences and those that are justified for medical reasons. It is not just a semantic issue: the social crutch that still allows citizens – well, more employees than self-employed – to put health before work is at stake. Abc discussed it on its front page with the following headline: “Absences due to mental disorders in young people rise by 365% in seven years”. It is an increase that makes one's hair stand on end with concern, but the newspaper's subtitle does not focus on the mental health of this group but on possible fraud: “Mondays account for three out of ten incapacities, almost double that of Fridays”. It is a sentence that pushes the reader to think about trickery, when what it should do is force us to ask why young people are changing their relationship with work. Beyond the simplistic narrative of whether they are made of glass or soft cotton, we need to examine whether work environments are healthy enough. At school, we educate children about mental health awareness, and then we throw them into an environment where more than one unscrupulous person, and two, are active. If you suffer at work, it's normal for Mondays to be harder for you than Fridays. Therefore, the data may not indicate fraud, but rather a worrying growing anxiety.

Meanwhile, La Razón blamed it – like everything else – on its particular Atlas: “Work absenteeism soared by 42% under Pedro Sánchez”. But if the laws are essentially the same, perhaps it has to do with the deep, still unknown, cost of the pandemic. Surely there are those who rely on the paid leave mechanism, and proper follow-up is necessary, but these figures suggest a much more worrying rot. Settling for the easy – and convenient for employers – explanation is a disservice to the reader.