When it comes to calling in sick in the European Union, no one beats the Cypriots, who had the highest level of leaves due to illness in the bloc – in 2015 – figures from the EU’s statistics agency Eurostat said.

Those were the latest numbers and showed that the share of total social benefits spent on paid sick leave was 8.5 per cent in Cyprus, more than double the EU average, which stood at 3.6 percent, the Cyprus Mail reported.

Curiously, the lowest was in austerity-crushed Greece, at only 0.7 percent where joblessness is still at near-record levels during a more than 7 ½-year-long economic crisis and those with jobs apparently fearful of losing them if they didn’t show up, even if ill.

Cyprus was followed by Germany and the Netherlands, both of which paid 6.1 percent on paid sick leave benefits as a percentage of total social benefits even though both countries boast work ethics they said are better than those of southern EU countries, where Italy came in at only 1.2 percent, Portugal at 1.4 percent and Romania at 1.6 percent, far below the EU average. Portugal also had an economic and austerity crisis before recovering.