Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected millions of people around the world. The peak of the disease in Bulgaria was in the period 2020–2021 and had an impact on all economic sectors. In construction companies, the pandemic has led to fewer employment opportunities, labor shortages, and many postponed or suspended projects.
Materials and methods
The data was collected from certificates for temporary disability of workers in a construction company, with an average listed number of workers between 1317.5 and 1364.5 for a period of three years, from 2019 to 2021. For each year, the total number of primary cases and lost work days were analyzed, as well as their distribution among the groups of occupational diseases. The following indicators were calculated: the frequency of sick employees, the frequency of cases and labor losses due to temporary disability, as well as the frequency of cases and days with temporary disability for the infectious and parasitic diseases (incl. COVID-19) group.
Results and discussion
During each of the analyzed years, there was a low frequency of registered illnesses and labor losses due to temporary disability in the construction company. This means that the COVID-19 recorded in 2020 and 2021 did not significantly affect these general indicators. Infectious and parasitic illnesses (including COVID-19) accounted for 17.1% of all reported disease cases throughout the three-year period and ranked third in the temporary morbidity of the contingent under investigation. In the group of infectious and parasitic diseases, the most were the cases of COVID-19 (74 for the entire period). Due to COVID-19, in 2020 and 2021, a high number of labor loss days were recorded, respectively, 297 and 721.
Conclusions
COVID-19 does not significantly affect the indicators of the frequency of cases and work losses from all diseases, but it occupies a significant part of the morbidity among infectious diseases for the period 2019–2021. The introduction of measures against the disease would decrease the number of cases and, accordingly, labor losses among workers.
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