2025 Absence Management and Wellbeing Report
For the past 20 years Sedgwick Health Solutions (formerly Direct Health Solutions) has conducted research into absenteeism levels and human resource practices across Australia. The objective of this guide is to provide a useful overview of absenteeism data trends and human resource practices available to tackle absenteeism.
Our findings how that employers can improve productivity and reduce significant costs when they understand the drivers of absenteeism in their organisations and adopt targeted strategies to address them. The challenge is that many organisations are not tracking absence accurately and believe that requiring a medical certificate to verify absence is a sufficient measure to manage it.
Our Absence Management & Wellbeing Report is based on a survey of data and absenteeism levels recorded from 1 January to 31 December 2024 for companies across Australia.
Highlights from our 2025 Absence Management and Wellbeing Report
Absenteeism is an extremely costly problem, averaging $4,000 per employee per annum. |
According to our survey, short-term absenteeism is the most problematic absence accounting for 90% of all absence cases. |
The cost of absenteeism is between 7% and 8% of total payroll costs when direct wages, indirect costs & lost productivity are factored in. |
Mental health absences jumped 35% in 2025 and are now the leading cause of long-term leave.
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The health and wellbeing of a workforce is important to organisational productivity and employee engagement.
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The cost of absence for Australia is estimated at 34 billion per annum.
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