Nope, shouldn't be absorbed through the skin - inhaling it though isn't good for children or women of childbearing age. Once worked at a place that the public health folks came in with a mercury sniffer. At desk height, no problems. Six inches off of the floor it was an immediate evacuation area due to the fumes. Since it was a storeroom with little traffic it was left alone. Seems that many thermometers had been broken in there over the years and the floor was contaminated as well as the floor drain.