Sexual harassment, bullying a major issue for healthcare workers

People working in healthcare and the hospitality industry are most likely to experience problems such as bullying and sexual harassment at work, according to the CBS’s latest national survey of working conditions.

Almost 30% of healthcare workers say they have been on the receiving end of some form of abuse in the past 12 months, as have 20% of bar, café and restaurant workers.

Women and people who have a lot of contact with others while working are more likely to experience problems, the survey shows.

“Healthcare and hospitality are sectors which revolve around human contact,” CBS researcher Luuk Hovius told Radio 1 news. “And this is where we see most harassment.”

In healthcare, men and women are equally likely to experience problems, but the situation is different in hospitality, where 24% of women and 16% of men have faced harassment of some form.

Overall, 17% of workers have experienced some form of unwanted attention or bullying, a figure described as “scandalous” by trade union federation CNV. “We need to do much more to combat this plague,” chairman Piet Fortuin told broadcaster NOS.

This means a million workers are doing their jobs in unsafe spaces and that is reflected in absenteeism figures, he said. “The number of people taking time off for psychiatric complaints is at an all-time high,” he said.