absentee rate vs percent

absentee rate and percent both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
absentee rate	Yes	No	No	No
percent	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, percent is a hypernym of absentee rate; that is, percent is a word with a broader meaning than absentee rate:

absentee rate: the percentage of workers who do not report to work
percent: a proportion in relation to a whole (which is usually the amount per hundred); ten percent

Other hypernyms of absentee rate include pct, per centum, percentage.

absentee rate (noun)	percent (noun)
the percentage of workers who do not report to work	a proportion in relation to a whole (which is usually the amount per hundred); ten percent