Average Absenteeism Rate in South Africa: What the Published Figures Say

The Short Answer

No government body publishes an absenteeism rate for the South African workforce as a whole. The largest recent dataset covers the public service. The Public Service Commission's leave report gives sick leave days and employee numbers for national and provincial departments; dividing them gives about 3.7 sick days per employee in 2023, or about 1.5% of working days (our calculation from PSC, 2025, Tables 12 and 13). For the private sector, the most cited study is from 2010: sick absence of 1.7% in financial services to 3.1% in mining, across more than 180,000 employees (CAM Solutions, via Sunday Times, 2010).

Any other figure you see should be checked against the measure it uses. Most of the gap between published numbers comes from how they were calculated, not from real differences in attendance.

South African Absenteeism Statistics: The Sourced Figures

The table lists each figure, the people it covers and how it was measured. Percentages are of working days unless the measure column says otherwise.

¹ Our calculation from the report's tables. Table 12 gives employee numbers, Table 13 gives sick leave days (6,190,519 in 2023), and Tables 15, 19, 23 and 24 give the number of employees who took sick leave. We converted days to a percentage using 250 working days a year. The report itself gives the per-taker averages of 8.6 days (national) and 6.9 days (provincial).

International figures for context

The CIPD size bands are the only published breakdown by organisation size we found, and they are for the UK. Each band rests on 30 to 88 responding organisations. No South African source breaks absenteeism down by company size.

Why These Figures Are Not Directly Comparable

Two organisations with identical attendance can report very different rates. These are the main reasons.

• Per headcount or per taker. The public service figure is 3.7 days per employee if you divide by everyone, and about 7.4 days if you divide only by the half who took sick leave. Both are correct. They answer different questions.
• Days or percentages. A percentage depends on the working days used as the denominator. 3.7 days is 1.5% of 250 days, 1.4% of 260 days, and a higher share of the potential days in a shift roster.
• What goes in the denominator. The UCT hospital study removed annual leave and public holidays from potential working days. That makes its 2.63% higher than the same absence measured against all scheduled days.
• Which leave types count. Most figures above are sick leave only. The HSRC educator estimate of 10% to 12% includes time away on official duties; leave alone was 8% to 10%. Some companies include family responsibility leave, unpaid absence or absconding. Sasol and the manufacturer in the Gutsa and Luke study do not say what they include.
• Where the data comes from. PERSAL and hospital HR records count recorded leave. CAM Solutions counted medical certificates. ONS uses a household survey. CIPD asks HR managers. BLS counts people absent in one survey week. Recorded leave misses unrecorded absence; surveys depend on what respondents remember.
• When it was measured. The PSC shows sick leave fell during the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns and peaked in 2022, when the public service returned to full office attendance (about 4.3 days per employee that year, by the same calculation from Tables 12 and 13). The CAM figures are more than 15 years old.

Before you compare your rate with any figure in this article, recalculate yours on the same basis: the same leave types, the same denominator, and per headcount or per taker to match.

The Public Sector: What the PSC Report Actually Shows

Claims that public sector absenteeism in South Africa runs at 7% to 12% are common online. The Public Service Commission's own analysis of PERSAL data does not support them. Across national and provincial departments, sick leave in 2023 came to about 1.5% of working days per employee, or about 3% for those who took any sick leave (our calculation from the tables in PSC, 2025). The 10% to 12% figure for educators (HSRC, 2010) is a different measure: an estimate of all time away from school, including official duties, built from 2008 data.

The PSC report records the cost of sick leave: R8.0 billion in 2020, R8.2 billion in 2021, R11.6 billion in 2022 and R10.2 billion in 2023 (Table 14). Incapacity leave and study leave are reported separately.

Which Sectors Have No Published South African Figure?

We found no published South African absenteeism rate for:

• Retail and wholesale
• Construction
• Hospitality
• Logistics and transport
• Agriculture
• Technology and ICT
• Private-sector employers by province
• South African employers by company size

If you see a figure for one of these, ask where it comes from. Mining, the medical sector, local government and financial services have only the 2010 CAM Solutions figures. Manufacturing has single-company figures (Sasol 2017, and the manufacturer in the Gutsa and Luke study). For sector context, see our pages on absenteeism in healthcare, mining and manufacturing.

What Is a Good Absenteeism Rate?

There is no legal or official standard in South Africa. Two numbers are often quoted:

• 1.5%. In 2010, CAM Solutions said sick absenteeism "should be about 1.5 percent", about 3.75 days in a 250-day year (Sunday Times, 2010). This is a recommendation from an absence management company. It is not an average of any measured group. Only the 2010 financial services figure (1.7%) came close to it.
• 3.5% to 6%. This range appears in many South African articles, sometimes credited to OCSA. The earliest attribution we found is to the chief executive of CAMS, quoted in the Mail & Guardian: "most companies have an overall absenteeism rate of between 3,5% and 6%" (republished copy). No method or sample is given for it. The 2010 CAM Solutions study gave the range as 2% to 6%.

A useful target comes from your own data. Start with your rate for the last 12 to 24 months, by department, calculated the same way each month. Set the target relative to that baseline and to the closest sourced figure measured on the same basis. A department that moves from 4% to 3% has improved, whatever any external figure says.

How to Calculate Your Absenteeism Rate Consistently

Absenteeism rate = (working days lost ÷ scheduled working days) × 100

Decide three things once, write them down, and keep them fixed:

1. Which leave types count. Most published South African figures use sick leave. If you also include unauthorised absence or family responsibility leave, report those separately so you can still compare the sick leave figure. Annual leave, maternity and parental leave and other planned leave are usually excluded.
2. The denominator. Scheduled working days for the employees in the period: working days less weekends and public holidays, or the actual roster for shift workers. Do not subtract annual leave unless the figure you are comparing against does (as the UCT study did).
3. Per headcount or per taker. Use per headcount for the organisation rate. Per taker is useful for understanding the people who are absent, but do not compare it with a per-headcount figure.

Worked example (illustrative figures): a company has 200 employees and 250 working days in the year, so 50,000 scheduled days. Employees took 2,100 sick days. The rate is 2,100 ÷ 50,000 × 100 = 4.2%, or 10.5 days per employee.

Our free absenteeism rate calculator does this for you and shows days per employee alongside the percentage. Sick leave entitlement itself is set by the BCEA; see our guide to sick leave in South Africa.

Frequency or Duration: What Is Driving Your Rate?

The same rate can come from many short absences or a few long ones. Split it into two numbers:

• Frequency: spells (separate absences) per employee per year.
• Duration: average days per spell.

In the UCT hospital study, staff averaged 2.65 spells a year at 2.25 days each, and 99% of spells were short-term (29 days or less) (Khan, 2022). The HSRC found just over three quarters of educator leave instances were one or two days (HSRC, 2010).

A rate driven by frequency calls for return-to-work conversations and a look at timing, such as Monday and Friday absence patterns. A rate driven by a few long absences usually points to illness or injury, which is managed through support and, if needed, an incapacity process. Our article on incapacity versus misconduct covers that distinction. If your policy uses the Bradford Factor, which weights frequency heavily, the Bradford Factor calculator works out the score for one employee.

Decompose Your Rate Before You Compare It

A company rate is an average of very different groups. Break it down by department, site, job type and pay band before drawing conclusions. The sourced studies show how large the differences can be:

• In the UCT hospital, non-clinical staff had a sickness absence rate of 3.29% and clinical staff 2.29%. Nurses were at 2.95% and doctors at 0.39% (Khan, 2022).
• Staff earning under R250,000 a year had the highest rate in that hospital, at 3.3% (Khan, 2022).
• CAMS found a sick absence rate of 2.3% for employees earning R5,000 a month or less, and 1.33% for those earning R10,000 to R15,000 (CAMS).

A company with a large share of lower-paid operational staff will usually show a higher rate than one made up of office staff, without any difference in how absence is managed. Compare departments with similar work, and compare each department with its own history.

Costing the Gap

The direct wage cost of absence is roughly your payroll multiplied by your absence rate, because employees on paid sick leave are still paid. The difference between your rate and a target therefore converts to Rand.

Worked example (illustrative figures): annual payroll is R45 million. Your rate is 1 percentage point above the target you set. The direct wage cost of that gap is about R45 million × 1% = R450,000 a year. Overtime, temporary staff and lost output come on top and depend on your operation.

The payroll multiplication is an approximation. In the UCT hospital, direct cost was 2.93% of total cost of employment while the absence rate was 2.63%, so absence among higher-paid staff cost more per day (Khan, 2022). Using each employee's actual daily pay gives a better figure. The cost of absenteeism calculator works through this, and our article on the cost of absenteeism in South Africa covers the cost categories.

If Your Rate Is Low

A low rate is worth checking before you report it.

• Unrecorded absence. Absence agreed informally with a manager and never captured in payroll does not appear in the rate.
• Individual cases. A low company average can include a few employees with frequent short absences. Look at the distribution, not only the average.
• People working while ill. The UCT study found doctors had a very low rate but the longest average spells, and raised the possibility that they work while sick until they are more seriously ill (Khan, 2022).

Frequently Asked Questions

Where Appsentia Fits

Appsentia calculates the sick leave absenteeism rate for the company, each department and each employee from leave data you upload from Excel or CSV, or sync from PaySpace. The definition stays the same every month, so trends are comparable. It shows absence frequency, timing patterns (Mondays and Fridays, public holidays, paydays) and the cost of absence in Rand from your salary data. See what Appsentia analyses and pricing.

Sources

1. Public Service Commission (February 2025). Report on the Utilisation of Categories of Leave in the Public Service: Facts, Observations and Recommendations. Tables 12 to 15, 19, 23 and 24.
2. Sunday Times (18 October 2010). Mining records highest absenteeism rate (CAM Solutions report).
3. Mail & Guardian, republished by Soma Initiative. Lower paid take more sick leave, statistics show (CAMS figures; original date not shown).
4. Khan, M.A. (2022). The burden and cost of sickness absenteeism amongst healthcare workers at a teaching hospital in South Africa. MPH dissertation, University of Cape Town.
5. Gutsa, L. and Luke, R. (2021). An assessment of factors affecting absenteeism: case study of a major South African manufacturer. African Journal of Employee Relations, 45.
6. Sasol Limited (2017). Sustainability Report 2017.
7. HSRC (13 December 2010). Educator leave: a need to reduce time away from classrooms (Reddy et al., An Investigation into Educator Leave in the South African Ordinary Public Schooling System).
8. SA People (September 2017). Absentees costing South Africa R16 billion each year (OCSA figures).
9. FA News (3 August 2022). The true cost of absenteeism in the workplace and how gap cover can prevent it (OCSA range of R12 billion to R16 billion).
10. Office for National Statistics (4 June 2025). Sickness absence in the UK labour market: 2023 and 2024.
11. US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Population Survey, Table 46: Absences from work of employed full-time wage and salary workers.
12. CIPD (September 2023). Health and wellbeing at work 2023. Figures 23 and 26.

This article is general information, not legal or actuarial advice. Figures are reported as published by each source; check the original before relying on them.