this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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Germans... lazy?? They are now 40% more sick per year than a few years ago (www.euractiv.com)
submitted 9 hours ago by Eyekaytee@aussie.zone to c/yurop@lemm.ee
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Germans call in sick more than 20 days per year on average, much more than workers in other EU countries.

Without the increase in sick days, the German economy could have grown by around 0.5% in 2023, instead of retracting by 0.3%, a study by pharma industry association vfa estimated last year.

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[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 0 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Do you suspect it is a data alignment issue causing the discrepancy? Germany is very high up compared to other countries:

https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_411-2700-absenteeism-from-work-due-to-illness-days-per-employee-per-year/#id=19398&fullGraph=true

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

No, during COVID Germans gained the right to call their doctor, instead of visiting, to get a certificate of incapacity, so they would not risk to infect others on the way to the doctor. This had the side effect of more sicknesses being official and registered. Previously short sicknesses went undocumented, because the employer has to pay the employee in Germany for sick leave for 7 weeks anyway and only at the 3rd day a certificate, which makes it official, is required. So people sick for only 1 or 2 days are now popping up in the statistics, even though they were likely like that all the time, but unofficially.

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 3 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

By data alignment I mean do you think France/Austria/others are having just as many sick days but they are not being counted?

Compared to France you were still quite high, but France does not have any data since 2018? Why? But even back in 2018 you had more than double that of France and Estonia etc

It looks like Germany and Czechia have significantly higher sick days compared to everyone else

For the downvotes: I am ok with this, I am more interested in the discussion on why Germany appears to rank so high in sick days (also Czechia as well)

[–] DigitalNirvana@lemm.ee 2 points 3 hours ago

I appreciate this deeper analysis. As a physician, concerned about public health, it would be useful to know with greater specificity what these higher numbers are due to, be it actual days of milder infectious disease which prevent / slow spread of disease, ‘mental health’ days (mental health care is part of health care), changes / misalignment with countries data collection, etc. With COVID, and other potential sources of post viral syndromes, increasing overall morbidity, such research could be useful in guiding public health policy towards better outcomes.