Much has been said recently about the worrying levels of absenteeism and sick leave in sectors of the Balearic economy. Employers associations have alluded to a 'crisis' in hospitality especially and are now making absenteeism a point for negotiation in collective bargaining agreements.
The attention has mostly been on the private sector, but the public sector has its issues as well. Palma Police provide a case in point.
In 2011, the first year of the Partido Popular administration under Mayor Mateu Isern, there were 895 officers. The number of days sick leave in that year was around 18,000. In 2025, with a force of 816, there were 30,907.
Since 2011, the city's population has obviously grown, yet police numbers have fallen. The current councillor with responsibilities for the police, Miquel Busquets, says that the situation in June 2023 - when the PP took over the government of the town hall - was "dire". The force had been losing officers despite a population increase of 100,000 from 2005. It was suffering from a loss of prestige arising from the Cursach affair.
The investigations into the owner of BCM were led by Judge Manuel Penalva and anti-corruption prosecutor Miguel Subirán. Both discredited following the collapse of the case against Cursach and others, numerous officers were implicated. Busquets stresses that these officers did not get support from the town hall (run by the left).
Jaime Martínez is now mayor. He and the administration have been criticised for a failure to implement a new organisational plan for the police, who believed this was scheduled to come into effect on January 1 this year. The mayor has denied ever having made such a commitment.
Busquets defends the mayor's record, his aim having been to increase the force by 300. By 2027, 375 new officers will in fact have joined the force.
The regional secretary of the SPPME-IB police union, Feliciano Franco, is a harsh critic of the left when they were in power. "The reduction in staff during the two terms was very significant; they didn't even replace retirees." Without overtly stating reasons for the increase in absenteeism, a factor is the ageing workforce. This has been coupled with work overload for a force whose numbers have not kept pace with the increase in population.