More respiratory diseases
Cold wave keeps absenteeism up
At the beginning of the year there was a wave of respiratory diseases. This ensures that the sick leave continues to be high. DAK boss Storm calls for a fundamental debate about the causes of work failures.
A strong wave of cold has kept the absenteeism of employees in Germany at a high level in the first quarter. According to DAK health, the employees had around a quarter more absenteeism due to respiratory problems than in the first quarter of 2024. Slight declines in almost all other disease groups had largely compensated for this increase.
Overall, sick leave was 6.0 percent in DAK insured persons in the first three months and thus 0.1 percentage points above the previous year’s value. According to the health insurance, it was 5.5 percent in 2023. A sick leave of 6.0 percent means that every day – from January to March – from 1,000 employees, an average of 60 on sick leave.
After the evaluation of DAK health for around 2.2 million employees, almost 40 percent of the employees had at least one sick leave. This is also a slight increase compared to the same period last year (38 percent).
DAK boss Storm sees no all-clear
“We cannot give an all-clear at the sick leave,” said DAK CEO Andreas Storm. “The absenteeism of the employees is still at an excessive level. It takes a thorough and serious debate about the causes, because in view of the continuing economic weakness in Germany, the absenteeism of the employees is of particular importance.”
Service diseases such as colds and bronchitis according to the information caused a total of around 158 absent days based on 100 DAK-insured employees-31 days more than in the first quarter of 2024. This corresponds to an increase of 24 percent.
The majority of the absent days went to the account of three disease groups in the first quarter: mental illnesses such as depression and muscle skeletal problems, such as back pain, followed the respiratory problems.
dpa
Source: Stern
