Editor's Note
This editor’s note highlights the key facts and market implications behind “Absenteeism Undermines Competitiveness and Profi”, with emphasis on sourcing, product fit, fabrication, logistics, or buyer impact.
Absenteeism has ceased to be an occasional incident and has become a structural factor affecting the productivity, operational organization, and competitiveness of the professional trade in building materials, ceramics, plumbing, and climate control. This is the main conclusion of a new sector report prepared by Andimac (National Association of Distributors of Ceramics and Building Materials). While the average absenteeism rate across the entire construction sector stood at 6.3% in 2025, in the professional distribution sector it moves in a slightly lower range, in line with wholesale trade, around 5.5%-6%.
From this data, a particularly useful competitive reading can be made for companies. Those operating below 4.5% presumably enjoy a clear competitive advantage, by better sustaining their productivity per employee, operational stability, and service quality. In contrast, exceeding 6.5% means entering a zone of increasing risk, where absenteeism begins to more intensely erode competitiveness, profitability, and commercial responsiveness. This latter assessment is a business inference drawn from the estimated sector rate.
The study confirms that 75% of companies state that absenteeism affects them directly in a fairly or very intense manner. Specifically, 35% report a very high impact and another 40% place it at fairly high levels. Short-term medical leaves, of up to 15 days, appear as the most frequent cause, cited by 70% of companies, ahead of paid leave and medium- and long-term leaves.
The relevance of the phenomenon is especially critical in a business like professional distribution, where commercial relationships, technical knowledge, and continuity of service are an essential part of the value proposition. The report emphasizes that, in this B2B segment, an absence not only generates a direct cost in the form of replacements, overtime, or lost productivity, but also a more difficult-to-measure indirect cost, though potentially more damaging: deterioration of the customer experience, risk of client portfolio turnover, and loss of technical prescription. In short, an erosion of service that can ultimately shift business to other formats.
According to the sector diagnosis, only 27% of companies calculate their absenteeism rate rigorously, while 43% admit to handling only an approximation and 30% admit to not knowing it at all. The report thus alerts to a major management anomaly: a majority of companies are facing a relevant problem without measuring it accurately, which limits both internal reaction capacity and any possible review of organizational or conventional frameworks. In companies with fewer than 15 workers, this deficiency may have a lesser impact, but beyond a certain structure, its measurement becomes fundamental.
In fact, the study shows that companies with 20 or more employees record a higher level of impact, but also a more structured management of the problem. Smaller ones tend to address it intuitively; medium-sized ones, however, begin to measure it, redesign schedules, explore incentives linked to attendance and productivity, and demand adjustments in collective bargaining agreements.
A Problem of People, Service, and Competitiveness
The report also identifies a correlation that the sector considers particularly sensitive: 57% of companies state that their collective agreement allows receiving 100% of salary from the first day of temporary disability leave. According to the document, this scheme appears associated with higher levels of absenteeism, although still incipiently due to the sample size.
Alongside absenteeism, the study detects another critical front for the sector: talent. 98% of companies identify the recruitment of qualified personnel as the main difficulty, and almost 30% state that they find it equally difficult to attract as to retain professionals. In other words, professional distribution faces a double pressure: it struggles to bring people in and, at the same time, suffers from an absence problem that overloads the present teams and compromises service continuity.
“Absenteeism can no longer be seen as a punctual or merely administrative problem. It has become a variable that directly impacts the company’s competitiveness, service quality, and the burden borne by the teams that do show up,” said Sebastián Molinero, director of Andimac.
He added:
“We are facing a structural problem that requires action both at the sector level and within the internal scope of each company, with measures that help improve management, the work environment, and the attractiveness of our sector.”
The report also includes measures that companies are already applying or consider most effective. From Andimac, they point out that "this problem requires actions at the sector level, to reinforce the image of professional distribution."
Source: Read the original article | Published: April 09, 2026