Employees on average around 15 days ill in 2015

Employees in Germany get sick longer and longer
Just a few months ago, the highest number of sick leave letters in 20 years had been reported. Now there are new numbers, according to a newspaper report. Accordingly, employees in Germany were ill on average for around 15 days last year.

Every employee was missing an average of 15 days last year
The sick leave rate in the first half of 2016 was the highest since 20 years ago. This emerges from an analysis of the statutory health insurance DAK-health, as reported a few months ago. Now, there are new numbers of sick leave last year that show that employees in Germany were sick much longer in 2015 than in previous years. As reported by the "Bild" newspaper, every employee on average lacked 15.2 days in the job.

Last year, every employee in Germany was on sick leave for an average of 15.2 days. (Image: nmann77 / fotolia.com)

About half a billion working days sick due to illness
In 2014 it was only 14.4 days, in 2013 only 11.8 days. This emerges from the report of the Federal Government "on the state of health and safety at work". According to the data, 587.4 million working days were lost last year due to illness.

This was 44 million more than in 2014. According to the newspaper, the loss of production due to illness would have amounted to 64 billion euros, seven billion more than in the previous year. Accordingly, every day of illness cost 109 euros production loss.

Little sickness absence in education
Add to this the fact that many workers go to work sick, the number of days on which employees were affected by health, even higher.

According to the "Bild" report, most of the sick days were in agriculture and forestry (14.6 days per sick leave), in the transport and storage area (14.2) and in the food and drink industry (13.5). Accordingly, the fewest sick leave rates were found in the financial and insurance industry as well as in education and training (9.3 days each).

In the public administration especially often sick leave
According to the information, the most frequent sick notes were registered with the public administration. On average, every employee reported sick leave 1.71 times a year.

The fewest cases were recorded in agriculture and forestry (0.72 sick leave), in the hospitality industry (0.74) as well as in the information and communications industry (1.07). (Ad)