Absenteeism in French enterprises and administrations has been rising steadily since 2020, creating challenges for both businesses and public services. In the private sector, the absenteeism rate reached 4.95% in 2025, while in the public sector, especially among local governments, it climbed to 6.1%. These figures reflect a complex situation involving longer absences, uneven distribution across generations and professions, and significant financial implications for both businesses and public finances. According to the 2026 WTW barometer, which surveyed 3,100 private companies with 427,800 employees, absenteeism increased by 1.6% in a year. During the 2010s, the rate stayed below 4%, but since 2020, it has remained above 4.7%. After peaking at 5.34% in 2022, a slight drop occurred in 2023 (4.71%), followed by a steady rise to 4.87% in 2024 and 4.95% in 2025. Noémie Marciano, director of health and social protection at WTW, noted that "the trends observed in recent years are confirmed: levels much higher than those before the pandemic and a second consecutive year of increase since the end of the pandemic period. Absenteeism is a complex and multifactorial phenomenon." While the proportion of employees who take at least one absence per year has remained stable at around 33.6% in 2025, the average duration of absences is increasing. An employee who took at least one absence in 2025 had an average of 38 days of absence, two days more than in 2023. This level is close to that of 2020, during the height of the health crisis (38.7 days). According to WTW, the lengthening of absences is the main cause of the increase in absenteeism since 2023. Longer absences are becoming more concentrated: in 2025, 4% of employees were absent for more than 90 days, accounting for 61% of absence days, compared to 58% two years earlier. This concentration poses a major challenge for companies: how to organize teams when a minority of absent employees heavily impacts the overall absenteeism volume? Conversely, 41% of absent employees take between one and seven days off, short absences that, although less impactful globally, disrupt the daily organization of teams.