The Omicron variant of COVID-19, which arrived in Spain at the end of November, has caused the sixth wave of infections throughout the country. Almost every day, Spain has hundreds of thousands of new positives and a hospital pressure on the ward that is beginning to be worrying.
As indicated by Adecco, as a consequence, this has generated a rebound in the number of sick leaves which is seriously compromising the proper functioning of primary care which, in addition to caring for patients with symptoms of COVID-19 who are waiting in health centers, adds the management of discharges and discharges of infected or isolated workers. At the same time, companies are experiencing significant growth in workers in sick leave situation and they are urgently looking for new employees to fill their needs.
As announced by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, the number of job losses initiated in the December skyrocketed to over 240,000 processes (until December 23), an advance of more than 200% compared to the month of November, when only 75,800 procedures were registered. However, according to figures from mutual insurance companies for work accidents, 576,000 workers were on leave due to COVID, more than double of what the Executive had communicated.
There is still no official data for the month of January, but casualties are expected to continue to rise. Thus, in this context, Adecco has verified that during this month of January it is experiencing an uptick in hiring workers of 15% due to the Omicron variant of COVID-19. This increase may be higher in those regions where the incidence of the sixth wave is greater.
In the words of Antonio López, director of Adecco On Site Solutions: “The COVID Omicron variant is turning out to be more contagious than we all thought. And this fact is also being noticed in Spanish companies. Since the last two weeks of December and throughout this month of January we are seeing how the business environment is noticing more and more the pressure due to the casualties that are occurring linked to this condition. If in January 2021 more than 630,000 people went through a withdrawal process linked to COVID, we very much fear that in this January 2022 those figures will even be exceeded. Today, we are noticing an increase of more than 15% in the needs of companies to replace workers who have taken leave due to COVID.”
The sectors and companies affected
We are in a special time of the year regarding employment starring the increase in consumption due to the sales campaign. Traditionally, the most strengthened sector in this period is commerce, which incorporates new professionals who streamline the high volume of work which is concentrated on these dates.
The sectors that benefit from the increase in consumption during the sales campaign, as happened at Christmas and its predecessors, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, they are the mass consumption and the areas of customer service or sales force in which more jobs are generated.
However, the pandemic has caused a change in consumption habits, and new ones have been generated that will continue over time or that they will even remain incorporated forever. These new purchasing habits have meant that other sectors have benefited in order to meet the increase in demand. They are the sectors linked to e-commerce, technology, food, distribution, retail, logistics and transport, among others.
All these sectors have been affected by the Omicron variant. “This increase in contracting is taking place in sectors where there were traditionally peaks of activity in this month of January, such as, for example, everything related to large stores and retail in these sales campaigns, everything related to logistics and transport, but also the food and automotive industry are experiencing this increase in casualties that is taking place linked to Ómicron with considerable suffering “, highlights Antonio López, director of On Site Solutions at Adecco.
In general terms, this incidence of sick leave due to COVID it is affecting office profiles less, since these profiles can telecommute and do not need to be covered by other workers as is the case in the service sector or in industry, where most workers have to perform their duties in person.
Similarly, by type of company, it is the medium and large companies that are leading this increase in hiring.
Total, Throughout 2021, more than 2.6 million casualties associated with COVID-19 have been recognized. Despite all this, thanks to vaccination, most of the registered cases are mild or less serious than in previous waves, so the casualties are usually of shorter duration. Thus, the cancellation processes initiated in December lasted an average of 9.96 days, while those in November lasted 12.6 days. The duration has been progressively decreasing. For example, in January 2021 a drop lasted 18.8 days on average, in July 2020 a total of 19.2 days and in March of that same year, just at the start of the pandemic, 39.9 days.
