@article{article_1655337, title={Assessing Workforce Loss in a Turkish Food Factory Before and During COVID-19’s First Year}, journal={Eskişehir Türk Dünyası Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi Halk Sağlığı Dergisi}, volume={10}, pages={284–298}, year={2025}, DOI={10.35232/estudamhsd.1655337}, author={Kılıç, Mahmut and Saygılı, Serpil}, keywords={COVID-19, gıda işleme endüstrisi, işyeri, devamsızlık, iş sağlığı}, abstract={The COVID-19 pandemic spread rapidly in 2020, impacting public health and disrupting the global economy through halted trade and business suspensions. Countries responded with quarantines, border closures, and travel restrictions. This study investigates the workforce disruptions caused by COVID-19 in the food processing industry. A retrospective analysis of 1,034 occupational health and safety records from an Ankara-based food factory examined work accidents and health-related absenteeism, comparing pre-COVID (2019) data with the COVID-19 period (1 May 2020–30 April 2021). Total workforce losses increased from 28,995 hours in 2019 to 31,920 hours during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Losses due to work accidents decreased significantly, from 3,750 hours pre-pandemic to 982.5 hours during the pandemic. Conversely, work-related illness resulted in higher losses during the pandemic (7,245 hours) compared to the pre-COVID-19 period (5,542.5 hours). When non-COVID-19-related causes, workforce losses during the pandemic amounted to 18,720 hours—noticeably lower than the 28,995 hours recorded in 2019. COVID-19 was directly responsible for 41.4% of the total workforce loss during the pandemic year. Within this category, the majority of hours lost (55.8%) were due to quarantine following exposure to confirmed COVID-19 cases, while only 5.5% were attributed to hospitalization or death. Although the food sector workforce experienced substantial impacts from COVID-19, the implementation of strict factory-level health and safety measures appears to have effectively mitigated workday losses, particularly by limiting virus transmission and reducing quarantine durations.}, number={3}, publisher={Eskişehir Osmangazi Üniversitesi}, organization={None}