Work in brief

SICKNESS ABSENCE AND JOB LOSS

In the modern flexible economy, temporary contracts of employment are issued commonly. Concerns have been expressed about this: on the one hand, that fear of job loss may be harmful to health, and on the other that actual job loss may be more frequent in those with everyday illnesses. To investigate this second issue, Virtanen et al1 conducted a cohort study of 60 000 temporary and permanent public sector workers (the Finnish Public Sector Cohort Study). Data were collected on employment contract, sickness absence, job termination, unemployment, and disability pensioning in 1997–2000. Several associations were observed. Among women, a high rate of sickness absence increased the odds of later job termination by 1.5–1.7 fold in …