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Sick days

December 28, 2009

The German health ministry has found that workers are calling in sick to work as rarely as in any year since records began. Analysts reckon they’re afraid of losing their jobs.

https://p.dw.com/p/LEoq
A woman sneezes
Most likely heading in to work nonethelessImage: picture-alliance

German workers in 2009 missed work just 3.3 percent of the time, or 7.3 work days, new data from the federal health ministry found.

The newspaper Die Welt reported on Monday that the figure was among the lowest that had been recorded since the health ministry began collecting data on sick days in 1970.

Ten years ago, the figure was higher. Back then, the average worker took nearly nine sick days a year. In 1980, the highest year recorded, it was about 13.

“In times of economic crisis, the number of sick days taken tends to go down,” said Joachim Moeller of Nuremburg's Institute for Employment Research.

He says workers in bad economic times are often afraid of losing their jobs and might go to work even when they are sick.

More data

The report revealed that workers in 2009 called in sick least frequently in January (2.97 percent of the time), and most in April (3.94 percent).

Men called in sick less frequently than women (3.2 percent versus 3.5 percent).

The beginning of the work week was the most popular time to call in sick, and the most cited reasons were muscle and skeletal aches, injuries, mental illness, and difficulties with breathing.

Incidence of mental illness causing absence from work has nearly doubled since 1990, the report found.

mrh/AP/dpa
Editor: Chuck Penfold