Employers in the Balearic hospitality industry were so alarmed by absenteeism rates that they made tackling these a key part of the most recent collective bargaining agreement. A major sticking point with the unions, the two sides in the end agreed to disagree. There was nothing specific about absenteeism in the agreement arrived at in June last year, except for the approval of a productivity and absenteeism observatory. This body, comprising representatives from the UGT union's services federation and from the hotels, restaurants and nightlife sectors, will convene for the first time on Thursday.
Ahead of this meeting, differences between the two sides are clear, the general secretary of the services federation, José García Relucio, insisting that the primary objective has to be to demonstrate that absenteeism figures in the hospitality industry "are lower than those cited by the employers' associations".
"The law clearly defines absenteeism, and we are not willing to accept a sick leave certificate issued by a doctor as such." This confusion, he says, has led to discrepancies in absenteeism figures. "They (the employers) speak of up to 20% in the hospitality industry, while ours are around 6%. I don't rule out the possibility that it might be higher in some specific hotels or at certain times of the year, but we shouldn't create alarm in the sector."
Alarm, it has to be said, is exactly what has been created, the employers (hoteliers especially) having been referring to high and unacceptable rates of absenteeism for at least the past couple of years.
The union hopes that the new body will, above all, be "useful" and outlines three key steps to ensure this. "The first is to define the role each entity plays in the observatory; the second is to have access to official data from the National Statistics Institute (INE) and the Balearics Statistics Institute; the third is to work on solutions. We need to conduct a thorough diagnosis of the situation based on official data and then work together to find a solution."
The Balearic employment ministry is supporting this observatory - the first of its type in the country - in various ways, including financial. Absenteeism and productivity have become political issues, with figures suggesting that absenteeism is a greater problem in the hospitality industry than in others. A recent report from the recruitment company Randstad used INE data in concluding that there was an overall absenteeism rate of six per cent in the Balearics in 2025, the lowest in Spain.