According to the information provided by the Central Evaluation Commission Disability of the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) to legislator Mario Redondo, public employees ask 5 times more sick days compared to those in the private sector.
According to the report, during 2014, the State granted 1,637,360 sick days at a total cost of ¢ 28,277 million. In the same year, the private sector granted 1,844,750 sick days at a cost of ¢ 15,207 million.
The average cost of a sick day in the private sector is ¢ 8,243, whereas in the public sector the cost is ¢ 19.262.
The amount of sick days requested and their cost were higher for the public sector, although the workforce in the private sector is 6 times larger than the state’s workforce.
Redondo attributed the phenomenon to the fact that
public goods are not appreciated with the same enthusiasm as private property”
and that
public employees feel they do not have to meet certain conditions of responsibility and commitment that must be met in the private sector to keed the job.”