Absenteeism in Mining in South Africa

This guide is for HR managers, HR business partners and mine managers. It covers what the South African data says, the absence drivers that are specific to mining, how to measure absence so that the numbers mean something, and what the research says helps.

What is the absenteeism rate in mining in South Africa?

There is no official, current absenteeism rate for the mining industry. Stats SA does not publish one, and most mining companies do not report one in their integrated reports. The figures that exist are:

• 3.1% in mining, against 2.8% for hospitals, 2.7% for local government and 1.7% for financial services. This comes from a CAM Solutions study of sick certificates for more than 180,000 employees in 60 businesses over one year. The rate was days absent divided by days the employees should have worked. (Sunday Times, 18 October 2010)
• 3.5% to 4.5% sick leave at a platinum mine, and 16% all-cause absence at a gold mine, where annual leave made up about 43% of absence, training 24% and sick leave 14%. (Pelders, Magweregwede and Rupprecht, Journal of the SAIMM, 2021)

The gold mine figure shows why definitions matter. A mine that counts all time away from the face (leave, training, sick leave and unauthorised absence) will report a much higher number than a mine that counts sick leave only. Before you compare yourself with anyone, check what they counted. Our guide to South African absenteeism benchmarks explains what each published figure measures.

For scale, the mining industry employed about 450,000 people in the second quarter of 2026. (Stats SA, Quarterly Labour Force Survey Q2 2026)

Why is absenteeism higher in mining?

In the 2010 CAM study, the company's chief executive linked the high mining rate to harsh conditions underground and to strict health and safety rules: a worker who is too sick to work underground must stay off. (Sunday Times, 2010) The drivers below are the ones that HR and operations teams in mining deal with most.

Shift work, shift length and fatigue

The 2021 SAIMM study of shift cycles in South African mines found that longer shifts were linked to higher fatigue and absenteeism. At the gold mine studied, a change to longer shifts with fewer consecutive shifts improved production, maintenance and safety, but the reported disadvantages were higher absenteeism and fatigue. The same paper cites a survey in which more than half of 875 mineworkers usually slept less than six hours in the 24 hours before a shift. (Pelders et al., 2021)

The Chief Inspector of Mines' guideline for a mandatory code of practice on risk-based fatigue management tells mines to review fitness, health, EAP and absenteeism data when they assess fatigue risk, and lists absenteeism as one of the outcome measures for a fatigue management plan. (GN R1025, GG 38339, 2014) A shift roster change is therefore also an absenteeism decision. If you change the cycle, measure absence by crew before and after.

Fitness to work underground

Section 13 of the Mine Health and Safety Act 29 of 1996 requires an employer to run medical surveillance for employees exposed to health hazards, including an initial medical examination and further examinations at appropriate intervals. (MHSA s13) The Chief Inspector of Mines has also issued a guideline for a mandatory code of practice on minimum standards of fitness to perform work on a mine, which each mine's own code must follow. (GN R147, 2016)

This affects absence data in two ways. A worker who is declared unfit, or who is waiting for an assessment, is absent from their normal role even if they are not sick in the ordinary sense. And a worker who returns after an illness may need clearance before going back underground. Check what your code of practice requires, and record these days under their own leave type so that they are not confused with sick leave or with unauthorised absence.

TB, HIV and occupational lung disease

TB has been one of the largest health burdens in mining, although the industry has cut it sharply. According to the Minerals Council, mining's TB incidence was more than 1,060 per 100,000 employees in 2015, against a national average of 834 per 100,000. By 2022 it was 278 per 100,000, below the national rate of 537. In the early 2000s the mining rate was about seven times the rate in the general population. (Minerals Council media release, 24 March 2024) A lower rate still means TB treatment absence in any large workforce, and treatment takes months.

A study of routine surveillance X-rays of working gold miners found silicosis in 3.8% of miners, ranging from 0.8% to 6.9% across shafts. Miners in full-time underground work had about twice the odds of silicosis. (Knight et al., BMC Public Health, 2020)

Treatment reduces absence. A study using monthly occupational health data from a large South African mining company (2009 to 2017) found that 18 months after starting antiretroviral therapy, absenteeism among workers living with HIV fell by about one day per worker per month. (Jockers et al., Journal of Health Economics, 2021) Occupational health programmes that find and treat disease early are an absence measure as well as a health measure.

Injury on duty and occupational disease

BCEA section 24 says the sick leave rules in sections 22 and 23 do not apply when an employee cannot work because of an accident or occupational disease covered by COIDA or the Occupational Diseases in Mines and Works Act 78 of 1973, except for any period when no compensation is payable. (BCEA s24) Injury-on-duty and occupational disease absence therefore belongs in its own category. If it is booked as sick leave, your sick leave rate is overstated and the employee's sick leave cycle is used up when it should not be.

Migrant labour, distance and travel

Many mineworkers have homes far from the mine, in other provinces or in neighbouring countries, and travel home on long weekends and leave. Long journeys make it more likely that a delay turns into a missed first shift. Check whether absence in your data clusters on the first shift after annual leave, after long weekends and after public holidays. If it does, the fix may be in leave planning and transport rather than in discipline.

Hostel and on-site residents have a specific protection. BCEA section 23(3) says that if it is not reasonably practicable for an employee who lives on the employer's premises to get a medical certificate, the employer may not withhold sick pay unless it gives the employee reasonable assistance to get one. (BCEA s23(3)) See our guide to medical certificate requirements in South Africa for the general rules.

Payday patterns

Absence on or just after payday is a pattern that mining HR teams often report. It can have many causes, including travel to send money home, debt pressure and alcohol. The only way to know whether it is present in your workforce is to test your own data against your actual pay dates, whether you pay weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

What does one absent person cost on a mine?

On a production crew, absence is not a simple daily wage cost. If a winch operator, a miner holding a blasting certificate or another safety-critical role is missing and there is no qualified cover, the crew may not be able to work safely, and the section loses a blast. At the platinum mine in the SAIMM study, labour shortages were one of the causes of lost blasts. The gold mine kept contingency labour of about 15% per section plus an extra roving crew to cover absence. (Pelders et al., 2021)

That contingency labour is the real cost of absence: people employed so that the section can still work when others are away. To estimate your own cost, add the wage cost of absent days, the cost of standby and contingency labour, overtime paid to cover, and the value of production lost on shifts when cover was not available. Our cost of absenteeism calculator helps with the direct part, and the cost of absenteeism guide explains the indirect costs.

How to measure absenteeism in mining

1. Separate leave types. Keep sick leave, injury on duty, occupational disease, unfit-for-work time, unpaid or unauthorised absence, annual leave and training apart. Each has a different cause and a different response.
2. Use scheduled shifts as the denominator. Absenteeism rate = unplanned absence days divided by scheduled working days, multiplied by 100. On a continuous operation, scheduled days come from the roster, not from a Monday to Friday calendar. The absenteeism rate calculator shows the formula.
3. Measure by shaft, section and occupation. A mine-wide average hides the section that cannot blast. Compare underground with surface, and crews on the same cycle with each other.
4. Count spells as well as days. Ten one-day absences disrupt a crew more than one ten-day absence that you can plan around. The Bradford Factor calculator weights frequent short spells.
5. Test for timing patterns. First shift after leave, Mondays and Fridays, days around public holidays and paydays. Our guide to Monday and Friday absenteeism patterns explains how to read these without jumping to conclusions.
6. Watch the trend, not one month. Look at 12 to 24 months by section before you set targets.

What the evidence says works in mining

• Treat disease early. The ART study above found a reduction of about one absent day per worker per month among workers who started treatment. (Jockers et al., 2021) TB screening and early treatment follow the same logic.
• Design rosters with fatigue in mind. The SAIMM study links longer shifts and more consecutive shifts to fatigue and absence. Assess fatigue risk when you change shift cycles, and measure absence by crew before and after. (Pelders et al., 2021)
• Plan cover for safety-critical roles. Know which roles stop a crew when they are absent, and train enough people to cover them.
• Talk to people when they come back. A short, consistent conversation after every absence finds problems that a sick note does not show, such as fatigue, travel or family pressure. See our guide to return-to-work interviews.
• Handle long-term illness as incapacity, not misconduct. An employee with a chronic or occupational illness needs an incapacity process. Our guide to incapacity versus misconduct explains the difference.

For a general overview of interventions, see how to reduce absenteeism.

How Appsentia helps mining HR teams

Appsentia works from the leave records in your payroll system. You upload an Excel or CSV export, or connect PaySpace for a nightly sync. For a mine, that gives you:

• Absenteeism rates by department and sub-department, which you can map to shafts, sections or crews.
• Your own working days and pay cycle (weekly, fortnightly or monthly), so payday checks run against your real pay dates.
• Flags for short sick spells on Mondays and Fridays, next to public holidays, on or after payday, and next to other leave.
• An attendance risk score from 0 to 100 for each employee, recalculated nightly from how often they are absent, how much of their sick leave falls on Mondays and Fridays, their recent trend and comparison with their department.
• Alerts when an employee's risk score moves into the high band or rises sharply.
• A Rand cost of sick leave, calculated from sick days and the average daily salary you set.
• Scheduled PDF and Excel reports for managers, with access limited to the departments each manager is assigned.

What it does not do: Appsentia does not read shift rosters or clock-in data, and its cost figure is direct wage cost only. Overtime, contingency labour and lost production come on top. A pattern flag shows timing and frequency. It does not establish misconduct, and every individual report recommends a supportive check-in as the first step.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

1. Sunday Times (18 October 2010). Mining records highest absenteeism rate. Reports the CAM Solutions study of more than 180,000 employees.
2. Pelders J, Magweregwede F, Rupprecht SM (2021). Optimization of shift cycles in the South African mining sector. Journal of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy 121(8).
3. Minerals Council South Africa (24 March 2024). South Africa's mining industry tackles TB and has sustainably beaten its 2024 milestone target (media release).
4. Chief Inspector of Mines. Guideline for a mandatory code of practice for risk-based fatigue management at mines (GN R1025, GG 38339, 19 December 2014).
5. Knight D, Ehrlich R, Cois A, Fielding K, Grant AD, Churchyard G (2020). Predictors of silicosis and variation in prevalence across mines among employed gold miners in South Africa. BMC Public Health 20:829.
6. Jockers D et al. (2021). HIV treatment and worker absenteeism: quasi-experimental evidence from a large-scale health program in South Africa. Journal of Health Economics 79.
7. Mine Health and Safety Act 29 of 1996, section 13.
8. Chief Inspector of Mines. Guideline for a mandatory code of practice on minimum standards of fitness to perform work on a mine (GN R147, GG 39656, 2016).
9. Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, sections 22 to 24.
10. Stats SA. Quarterly Labour Force Survey, Q2 2026 (P0211).

This page is general information, not legal advice. Check the current Act, your sectoral determination or your bargaining council agreement before acting on a specific case.