The corona pandemic and waves of colds: In many companies, there were empty places last year because colleagues were not healthy. The exact extent is now clearer.
According to an evaluation by the health insurance company DAK-Gesundheit, sick leave at work has increased significantly in the past year. On average, employees were absent from work for almost 20 days – a good five days more than in 2021, as the health insurance company determined based on its own insured data.
Sick leave rose by 1.5 points to 5.5 percent compared to the previous year. On average, 55 out of 1,000 employees were on sick leave every day of the year. This was the highest value since the analysis began 25 years ago.
“Alarming Record Level”
Cashier Andreas Storm told the German Press Agency: “This record sickness rate is alarming and should be a wake-up call for the economy.” The corona pandemic has lost its great horror because the number of severe courses has decreased significantly. However, sick leave has a massive impact on the world of work. It is important that people continue to protect themselves and are protected in the workplace. This is particularly true in view of the increasing shortage of personnel and skilled workers in the economy.
Most of the absences were due to respiratory diseases such as colds and bronchitis, which increased dramatically. That is why, according to the DAK analysis, there were 398 days of absence per 100 insured persons in 2022 after 146 in the previous year. In the case of back pain and similar problems, there was a slight increase to 354 missed days per 100 insured persons. 301 days of absence per 100 insured persons were registered due to mental illness. There was a clear increase in sick leave in connection with Corona in 2022: The number of days of absence per 100 insured persons caused by this rose from 22 in 2021 to more than 130.
Cold waves also at atypical times
The tense situation was also reflected in the fact that last year, at 64 percent, an unusually large number of employees had at least one sick leave. In normal years, this is the case for at most half of the employees, explained the cash register. For the analysis, the Berlin Iges Institute evaluated data from 2.4 million employed DAK insured persons in Germany.
According to an evaluation by the Techniker Krankenkasse with data up to the beginning of December, there were significantly more sick leave among employees in 2022. The health insurance company explained at the end of December that waves of cold also played a major role at atypical times with unusually high levels, for example in July and October.
The DAK basically explained that the higher numbers for 2022 were partly due to the fact that certificates of incapacity for work have been going directly from practices electronically to the cash registers since the beginning of last year. In this way, cases would now also be included in the statistics that would otherwise not be recorded because insured persons did not send yellow notes. There is now a much lower number of unreported cases and an even sharper view of the actual sick leave.
Source: Stern
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
