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Public servants take more sick days than average Joe: report

Public servants take more sick days than average Joe: report

They get better pay, have more job security and, it turns out, Canadian public servants take way more sick days than people who work in the private sector, a new report says.

Public servants, including those in the education and healthcare fields, took an average of 10.6 sick days in 2014, the Macdonald-Laurier Institute reported Friday. Private sector workers took an average of 6.4 days.

The number of days public servants are sick has also jumped from 7.2 days in 1987, where as the number of days private sector workers have taken off when ill has remained nearly static. The average in 1987 for private sector workers was 6.1 days.

Philip Cross, the author of the study and the former chief economic analyst for Statistics Canada’s, said it is unlikely federal employees get sick more often.

“Both the level and trend of sick leave use in the federal government and throughout the public sector is troubling,” he wrote in the report, A Sickness in the System: How public sector use of sick leave benefits really compares to the private sector.

“The research suggests that the most important determinant of sick leave use is whether you are in the public or private sector, not your exposure to possible injury or illness in the workplace,” Cross wrote.

The report is based on the labour force survey (LFS) done by Statistics Canada. That survey does not take into account Canadians who are self-employed.

The paper noted education workers were off sick an average of 8.4 days in 2014, below the public-sector average but “still high” when compared to the private sector.

“The lower use of sick leave by education workers may in part reflect how teachers are allowed to cash out some unused sick leave benefits when they retire,” Cross wrote.

Canadians who work in private business services took an average of four days in 2014, while people who worked in accommodation and food took 5.3 days “despite constant contact with the public.” People who worked in administrative services took the highest number of sick days in the private sector — an average of seven days.

The previous Conservative government had said it wanted to look at sick day policies, including the option to “bank” unused sick days to be used the following year or paid out at a later date. The Liberals have said they will review the policies before making any decisions.

Cross wrote that overhauling the sick leave policies for public service workers “would be a small step in re-aligning federal pay and benefits with those of the private sector workers who ultimately pay those benefits.”