8 ms·

Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe

39 points by bushwart 3mo ago

realusername 3mo ago
Looking at the OCED data per country, it's pretty clear that it has zero links with the economy
- joe_mamba 3mo ago
  It's mostly cultural. In some countries like Germany, Sweden or Netherlands, it's normalized that if you wake up tired or hungover or have a sore throat, you just don't show up at work that day, but in others it's frowned up and your boomer parents and many peers will look at you like you're needlessly weak and avoiding your adult responsibilities by letting a little headache or sniff hold you back from your duties. That's how you see Eastern Europe actually having much fewer sick days from work despite lower life expectancy and a less performant healthcare system than the west. The communist system and post-communist hardship from the economic collapse meant people had no chance but to work no matter what, if they wanted to eat that day. Not going to work because of a cold or headache or things like depression or burnout was unthinkable to the generation that grew up under those conditions and they perpetuated that mindset to Millennials too. Sick leave was only if something was falling off. That's why Eastern European immigrants who migrated west were so valued for their work ethic. Granted, now thanks to Gen-z things are changing for the better and are adopting the more nordic and ladi back mindset on work ethic.
black_13 3mo ago
[dead]
sscaryterry 3mo ago
These averages are insane!
- froh 3mo ago
  yes. and driven by long term sicknesses like, for example, burnout, cancer, and work-related older age issues. dropping phone-in sick calls will sure as hell end those /s this whole package is driven by populist disinformation.
xen0 3mo ago
The reported average of 20 days is likely skewed by a small number of long leaves and I suspect* is nowhere near typical for the median worker (it's nearly taking a day off every two weeks). Longer leave already requires a doctor's approval so the proposal to require that for all leave is unlikely to change much other than drown doctors in more busy work. *I can't find much for the 'median' amount of leave taken per year.
- uniqueuid 3mo ago
  That's exactly right. This article [1] mentions 40% of sick days being from people with long-term (> 6 weeks) illnesses. That's data from one of Germany's large insurers. While I don't know the proportion of those with long-term illnesses, if we assume it's at most 10%, then the average for people with "normal" short-term illnesses is at most 12 days. So much lower. [1] https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/sind-die-deutschen-wirklich-haeufiger-krank-als-andere-europaeer-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/sind-die-deutschen-wirklich-h...
  - realaleris149 3mo ago
    > from one of Germany's large insurers Is this voluntary insurance? It changes meaning to the statistic to % from those that made an insurance.
    - uniqueuid 3mo ago
      I assume you mean there might be a self-selection issue with people who are voluntarily ("privately") insured, as compared to those who have the normal state-mandated ("gesetzlich") insurance? This data is from AOK which is one of the state-mandated insurers. It insures around 2M people, and my gut feeling is that they are not terribly unrepresentative of the workforce as a whole. But of course the point is, everyone with a tiny bit of true data could tell much more precise stories, and the journalists (as usual) didn't care or didn't think it would fly with readers.
      - TomK32 3mo ago
Qem 3mo ago
I wonder if lost productivity from sick leave days is offset by preserved productivity of all coworkers that were not infected by people that felt obliged to show up sick with flu or other communicable disease.
- pixelpoet 3mo ago
  We're about to find out! Not to mention all the doctors who'll be getting sick from hordes of people with basic cold and flu piling up in their practices. Man, Merz truly is a genius! You can tell he's had so much experience in normal jobs, truly understands the average worker's situation.
  - varispeed 3mo ago
    It's classism. Working class are suspicious. Let's check if they are _not_ lying, wholesale.
  - joe_mamba 3mo ago
    >Man, Merz truly is a genius! You can tell he's had so much experience in normal jobs, truly understands the average worker's situation. What else do you expect from a Blackrock veteran and possible trojan horse? Heck, I don't even blame him, same how I don't blame a scorpion for stinging the frog, it's just in its nature, I blame the Germans that voted for him. As a democracy, every such national fuckup(and they have a lot of those) is 100% on them and so are the consequences. You reap what you sow.
    - wqaatwt 3mo ago
      Well they did have Merkel who did more or less nothing useful for 15 years and dug the hole Germany is in now by kicking the can down they road.. It doesn’t even matter what Merz does or doesn’t do at this point, everything will have disastrous effects on a significant proportion of the population
- mstaoru 3mo ago
  In Asia people with communicable diseases usually wear masks. They're not obliged to wear them, it's just common courtesy.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
anthonj 3mo ago
"As part of Merz's proposals, from January next year, workers will no longer be able to get a sick note over the phone. They must visit a doctor in person and on the first day of illness." Can't wait to share the sbahn with feverish people or seeing a live diarrhea attack.
- HiPhish 3mo ago
  I had a migraine attack recently; I was able to call my doctor and have him write a sick note for a day over the phone and have it transmitted digitally to my employer. What the fuck would be the point of tormenting myself for half an hour on a noisy public bus in bright daylight in the middle of summer, the waiting in a bright room for half an hour, wait at the bus stop in bright daylight for up to an hour for the next bus back (since I don't know how long I will be at the doctor's office I cannot plan my trip back) and then torture myself for another half hour on the bus back? It's not like the doctor can do anything but take my word for it when I'm in his office anyway. There is no migraine test you can run. So you might as well cut out all the bullshit and let me rest so I can recover better.
  - Obscurity4340 3mo ago
    The point is there must be a boot ever-closely infringing on your neck and your reasonable breakdown of the impending absurdity about to play out just doesnt take any of that into account.
- NekkoDroid 3mo ago
  > Can't wait to share the sbahn with feverish people or seeing a live diarrhea attack. The 2 results I see from this change in policy is: 1. People go sick to work and possibly infect other people 2. Doctors give multi day sick notes (when 1 day would have been enough) to not be bothered again the next day, resulting in people being home longer when not needed. I genuinely don't understand who looked at this policy change and thought "this will probably help with people working more". The only people that will be working more are the "Hausärzte".
  - 3mo ago
xjrk58x 3mo ago
Doctors in Germany love to put you off work for longer than necessary. Usually the whole week. I totally see that this will result in average going up instead of down.
- tredre3 3mo ago
  Do people consult doctors to obtain medical leaves shorter than a week? It seems like a waste of time for everybody involved. Either the problem is bad enough that you need time off and you might as well round it up to a week, or the problem is benign enough that you don't need time off at all.
  - jann 3mo ago
    That's the whole point, before they would only need to do it on the fourth day of sickness, now you need to go to a doctor on the first day. More workload for doctors and either sick people coming to the office infecting others, or getting the whole week off immediately.
sunsetSamurai 3mo ago
why are governments always trying to find something to fuck over the working class?
- inigyou 3mo ago
  Because we keep voting for a certain kind of government. CDU is right-wing - formerly center-right but now trying to win voteshare back from the AfD.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
IveSeenItAll 3mo ago
Yeah, I have no idea how any of these figures are derived, but... I have a hard time imagining a planet where 1.8 weeks of our Polish employees and 2.7 weeks of our Dutch employees are 'lost due to sick leave' per annum. Days? Maybe. Weeks? On average? Nah... But, please, do continue your explanations of "see, this is why Europe can't compete"
- pelorat 3mo ago
  [flagged]
  - IveSeenItAll 3mo ago
    You're deservedly getting downvoted for this unprompted outburst of racism, but please: describe, in detail, how your colleague, regardless of country of origin, gets away with at least 8 hours of absence every month with a Dutch company, without triggering a remediation program with the bedrijfsarts.
- 317070 3mo ago
  I probably get there, but I have young kids. But yes, these are averages between 1 person having 12 weeks and 12 people with 1 week. It's most likely power law distributed, so the average will feel weird. There are people with cancer, severe car crashes and other horrible but temporary medical conditions in this average.
  - IveSeenItAll 3mo ago
    > There are people with cancer Oh, yeah, I know. One of our top (young! sad!) people in .nl has been intermittently-working for, like, months now due to that, unfortunately. But... that doesn't count as "sick leave"! Because, it's, like entirely foreseeable! What is happening is that they, through the medical consultancy working for the employer (i.e. "us"), submit their proposed working schedule a few weeks in advance. This will have several 'non-work' days (around chemo), some 'partial-work' days, and so on, basically with hourly granularity. "We" then plan and account accordingly: "we" pay for a few hours, insurance for a few, national-level insurance for a lot, but all "we" see is a plan for actual working time. Conflating any of that with "oh, you can just stay home whenever you want" is sick and wrong, like so much of the discussion here around "Europe." I mean, you get eviscerated for wrongly naming a Chicago suburb, but blanket statements about an entire continent are de rigeur
moi2388 3mo ago
I wonder which spreadsheet manager assumed that if I am sick 1 day per month, I actually am also 1 day less productive. I am not; the same amount of work gets done. Probably more because I’m not half-sick on the job for 3 days instead.
OptionOfT 3mo ago
Belgium law allows employers to enforce a sick note starting day 1. I joined an employer that didn't require this, and it was such a breath of fresh air. At our local doctor, the first 5 hours of his workday were comprised solely of writing notes for people to stay home. It is a waste of (recovery) time to enforce everybody to get a note starting day one. And describing the situation in the US on this to validate these changes is insane. Many people in the food business don't have paid sick leave, and as such lose pay when they don't come to work. And those people should absolutely have the ability to stay home without putting their finances in jeopardy. It should be a sign out front: we have paid sick leave for our people so they don't feel forced to come to work sick.
- joe_mamba 3mo ago
  From which perspective are you talking about? Workers in Belgium or the US?
- cassianoleal 3mo ago
  Even more than a day is terrible. If I have a cold or the flu, the last thing I want to do is to go to the doctor. I'd rather just rest up, it goes away in 3-5 days and I can be back at work. The need for a doctor's notes means one of: * I explain to my employer, probably don't get paid for those days, and might face disciplinary action or eventually get fired * I go to the doctor, making my recovery less likely, increasing my stress levels which are already high due to my body fighting an infection, and risk infecting others or worse, catch something else myself for being made to cohabit space with other sick individuals * I work even though I'm sick. If I do that from the office, I risk contaminating colleagues - and other people I interact with There's no winning.
  - joe_mamba 3mo ago
    > it goes away in 3-5 days and I can be back at work. Sitting 5 days at home without a doctor seeing you on the basis of "trust me bro it's just a flue it will pass soon" also seems dangerous since plenty of people suck at self diagnosing themselves and end up more sick or even dead by ignoring major issues thinking it's something small that will pass. And that's besides the trust part where people are gonna exploit this for extra vacation. If we just let everyone self diagnose themselves all the time at home, the graveyards will be full. Forcing sick people to see a doctor after X days feels like the best for both worlds.
HiPhish 3mo ago
What pisses me off about all this is that the there is the underlying assumption that the working class is with the lazy working class. No, the problem is efficiency and incompetence at the top levels, not at the bottom. Running faster in the wrong direction won't get us any closes to the goal. Let me make a proposal and you tell me what you think of it. I'd say the fundamental problem is career culture, the idea that mobility is valued over reliability. What I mean by that the culture of collecting good-boy points by starting projects, building PowerPoint slides and giving the appearance of getting work done, all in order to get a promotion and jump ship to the next higher position before your sloppiness catches up with you. Someone else is left holding the bag. If people had to actually own what they shit out in the long-term things would be much different. You either fall or rise with whatever projects you start. You might be able to bullshit your way through the corporate structures for a year or two, but ten years? No, if your project is to last for ten years you better put actual effort into it, not just the bare minimum to produce Potemkin slides. Look at Stuttgart 21[1]. The reason it has been moved to 2031 (at the very least) is not because of the grunt worker being too slow. It is systemic failure at the top. Is it incompetence or malice? I don't know, you pick which option is worse. What I do know is that it cannot be the common worker on the ground who has to pay the price for it. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21
- TomK32 3mo ago
  Fehmarnbelttunnel is the better example because you can see the difference in legislation between Denmark and Germany. Denmark passes laws for projects of such importance while in Germany the project has to hop over every existing legislative hurdle that are great for preventing smaller projects going bad, but do cost extra time and money on a larger scale.
ilc 3mo ago
Disclaimer: I'm a US Citizen / Worker, white collar. My first job had: Unlimited sick time. Take it when you need it. No doctor's note. I think you may have needed one at the week mark. Never hit at that employer. Most employers have been limited sick, with a note at a week. I can't imagine note on day 1. That's just... nuts. The lack of trust shown there is massive. I'm making calls on stuff far larger than my sick days. If you can't trust me on sick days, how can you trust me to do my job?
- joe_mamba 3mo ago
  >The lack of trust shown there is massive. All systems based on trust eventually get abused. Not by everyone of course, but catching a few with their hands in the cookie jar is enough to trigger a rethink on the whole trust-based thing. Most corporate German workers I knew were taking a few extra vacation days a year as sick leave, or using fake sick leave(often weeks or months!) as revenge if their employer didn't give them their desired raise or promotion. Their own admission, it's basically an open secret when you move there. Hell, we had German colleagues that would mysteriously get "sick" exactly before the customer delivery crunch, every-single-time, like clockwork. The problem is when this becomes culturally normalized, more and more people do it as they see those abusing it get away with extra vacation days so then they think why wouldn't they do it too, otherwise they're suckers, right? And so after a while, the abuse starts to become so rampant and obvious to the employers as well, which leads to increasing the cost of doing business in Germany, and so everyone gets the collective punishment if they still wish to keep their jobs and not lose them to neighbouring countries that have cheaper labor because workers there don't abuse this system(yet). That's the same thing that ended 100% remote/WFH jobs and triggered the return to office mandates, too many people obviously scamming the trust based system pretending to work while actually doing nothing. >I'm making calls on stuff far larger than my sick days. If you can't trust me on sick days, how can you trust me to do my job? These policies aren't meant to target the German workers making important decisions who have a lot of bargaining power, but those on menial jobs to keep them working on the hamster wheel. It's what the communist system was designed to do to workers too. You keep them busy all day conforming to stupid bureaucracy and queues, and they're too busy to protest or switch jobs, forcing them into indentured servitude. Merz is a product of Blackrock after all. So it's either a 50 IQ move or a long term 500 IQ move. Anyway, this isn't the first time in recent history when labor privileges were scaled back in Germany. Agenda 2010[1] did similar things, mostly by defanging unions. The truth is that those crazy good perks were gotten by the working class when Germany was the world industry leader post-WW2, but now Germany's industry output is at a 20 year low(thanks to a series of political and corporate self-owns) so it can't afford the same perks like in the past, and needs to scale back its generosity if it wishes to stay solvent. At the end of the day it's just business, and you need business to fund the welfare state. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010
frb 3mo ago
I don’t understand Merz’s obsession with this sick leave topic, like this is going solve the economic crisis in Germany and calling people lazy will score points with voters? Fun fact: research shows it’s probably not better or worse than before, just more rigorously reported through a new digital system since couple years (before that people needed to send paper slip notes to their employers and insurance, which some just wouldn’t do so the data was incomplete). On the other hand, they explained that they want to go back to the rules like they were before Covid. Effectively, this means that sick leave notes can be fixed contractually between employers and employees and a lot of companies and contracts have more flexible rules as also most HR departments don’t feel like dealing with the bureaucracy.
- stop50 3mo ago
  Nobody understands it. Merz never worked. The last time he worked was when he did his service in the Bundeswehr. His Politics can be described as Anti-Merkel: Immigrants are the Evil and the woking class must work for the lowest pay possible and preferably die before they can enjoy retirement; and lastly nobody is right of the CDU.
  - wqaatwt 3mo ago
    Merkel dug the hole Germany’s economy is in now. No meaningful reform and disastrous energy policies for 15 years..
- inigyou 3mo ago
  It is very ordinary conservative neoliberal politics, isn't it? People with these politics are always complaining that people aren't working hard enough.
arnejenssen 3mo ago
I'm Norwegian. I have not taken a single day of sick leave (M51). I believe that if I get sick, it is my fault and responsibility, and I should not burden the employer or public sector with that. In 2009 i fell off a bike and hurt a knee. My fault. So I took 5 days of my vacation to stay home.
- uniqueuid 3mo ago
  I can relate to the attitude, but I also suspect it's a lot easier to live like this in one of the two richest countries in the world with the least stressful labor markets (going by the experience of my friends who emigrated there).
- Melatonic 3mo ago
  So you go to work sick ?
  - arnejenssen 3mo ago
    I work even if I have a cold. Luckily I never had symptoms of flue. I was down with Epstein-Barr/mononucleosis for 12-14 days in 2004, and then I stayed home (home from PhD studies).
    - roryirvine 3mo ago
      Should you not then take responsibility for the additional sick leave taken by your colleagues as a result of you exposing them to your infectious diseases? It's quite possible that the total sick leave you've caused is substantially higher than it would have been had you simply stayed home when ill.
- cyberpunk 3mo ago
  What’s the insurance setup like in norway? In germany at least, your insurance pays for (at least part) of this time, and since its mandatory to pay it and hundreds of euros a month, I’m not in any way inclined to give up my precious family time (holidays) to save my insurer money. I have a hard time understanding how one would feel otherwise. Also, generally, I can’t think of a time i had off work where something ultimately failed to be delivered because of it, I’ll typically put in some extra time etc when i’m back if a deadline is looming. So who really loses?
IshKebab 3mo ago
Stupid idea. Doctors are incentivised to just give out a sick note to anyone that asks. There's no downside for them if they do that, and if they don't, they get complaints from the public. It seems likely to me that we will end up with private companies being paid by employers to evaluate your health and determine if you can go off sick. Not the nicest solution but I don't see what other option there is given the level of abuse. Either that or companies will drastically lower the amount of paid sick leave they give, maybe to zero like in the US. I think that would be even worse.
- yugioh3 3mo ago
  more than 80% of workers in the US have paid sick leave without doctors notes required. varies by state. not sure where you’re getting your information…
gerikson 3mo ago
Since the late 80s, Sweden has a system where on the first day when you're off work due to illness, you're not paid ("karensdag"). I started working just before this system was put in place, and there was so much sick leave claimed that people were seriously wondering why Swedish workplaces were so unhealthy. A year after the reform, the numbers fell precipitously.
- cess11 3mo ago
  Clearly it was appreciated, but not by bureaucrats.
justafewwords 3mo ago
[Weekendmodus:] First the thing seem to be, that there were a depressive pilot, some years ago, who made an "extended-suicide". The people across Germany were told, "It was, cos the company hasn't known, that a doctor issued a 'sick note' (In Terms of: When he was unable to work - he should't fly a plane with more than 100 people on board.')." There was a need for a soulution, so my bet was on the workers side: "If the doctors send the "sick-note" directly to the employer (via "Fax" or email), you'll save a Stamp at minimum, or doesn't have to visit your workplace, ill." Everybody who went sick one time, knows that it is not easy every time, to visit someone when you're ill, not? That is one of the Mistakes somebody would take granted, by those what the media seem to hide for -you know "generating hype and clicks about". And for the 2nd, (verry distracting by now): If doctors now have to inform employers within day one, that'll fit it perfect. So no "hysteria", no "hype". People seem to forget fast -in not my words: "Just a school class who died by that extended suicide" but in memory of that... by remembering it... regards (-:
siva7 3mo ago
If you need such laws to be enforced in order to keep your workforce on leash... you are either a very uninspiring employer or you are the current german chancellor. Good bye german economy with such an uninspiring leadership.
karussell 3mo ago
Of course sick leave has increased in Germany, but the main reason is reporting. Since 2022 in Germany there is a new electronic sick note and doctors report every certificate directly to insurers. Before that short illnesses very often went uncounted. I find it quite concerning and clickbaity that this reason is also included but comes relative late in the article: One major reason for the rise in sick leave is better reporting, IGES wrote in its report published in January.
miohtama 3mo ago
Berlin public servants spent 30% of their work days on a paid holiday or sick leave https://x.com/posta_octavian/status/2072672993126334709?s=20 https://x.com/posta_octavian/status/2072672993126334709?s=20
- somedude895 3mo ago
  People on HN don't understand what Germany's like these days. I know people who have been off work for over a year still getting paid quite handsomely, even though they're perfectly fit to work. There's been a lady in Berlin recently who has been on sick leave for two years but still tried to run for some office and was defended for it by the usual suspects. It's really out of control. Doctors are handing out sick notes like candy. Germany has developed a really unhealthy relationship to work ethics after years of being coddled with benefits and victim ideology.
- unparagoned 3mo ago
  Paid holiday isn’t a work day
cess11 3mo ago
If this is actually enforced it'll probably change healthcare in Germany quite a lot. Imagine that people infected with something from Caliciviridae, as parents tend to be every or every other year when the kids are small, has to enter medical facilities to get sick leave from work. Highly contagious, shits and/or vomiting, not uncommonly together with fever. As a medical practitioner you'll quickly find a way to work around this and make yourself able to hand out notes without bringing the infected remotely close to your actual care facilities.
tclover 3mo ago
[flagged]
mstaoru 3mo ago
I lived and worked in China for 10+ years. It is very very rare that people take sick leaves there, or any kind of vacation. Partly it's considered "not good for the team" if someone is missing, so it's peer pressure to stay and grind. Partly its the fact that everything there is efficient - you can go to the hospital in the morning, see any doctor within 15 min, and do whatever tests within another 15 min. (In Germany in April I booked the closest endoscopy slot... in November.) Now I work in Germany. Vacation and sick leaves here are... very generous. In fact I'm writing this while on vacation. In my company it's often hard to set up a meeting with 4+ people because for months in advance at least 1-2 are on vacation. I don't want to express any opinion on this. One interesting thing is how people here say "work smarter, not harder". I don't know how they imagine China, but I promise you people work smart AND hard there. The results are obvious.

39 points by bushwart 3mo ago

realusername 3mo ago

Looking at the OCED data per country, it's pretty clear that it has zero links with the economy

joe_mamba 3mo ago
It's mostly cultural. In some countries like Germany, Sweden or Netherlands, it's normalized that if you wake up tired or hungover or have a sore throat, you just don't show up at work that day, but in others it's frowned up and your boomer parents and many peers will look at you like you're needlessly weak and avoiding your adult responsibilities by letting a little headache or sniff hold you back from your duties. That's how you see Eastern Europe actually having much fewer sick days from work despite lower life expectancy and a less performant healthcare system than the west. The communist system and post-communist hardship from the economic collapse meant people had no chance but to work no matter what, if they wanted to eat that day. Not going to work because of a cold or headache or things like depression or burnout was unthinkable to the generation that grew up under those conditions and they perpetuated that mindset to Millennials too. Sick leave was only if something was falling off. That's why Eastern European immigrants who migrated west were so valued for their work ethic. Granted, now thanks to Gen-z things are changing for the better and are adopting the more nordic and ladi back mindset on work ethic.

black_13 3mo ago

[dead]

sscaryterry 3mo ago

These averages are insane!

froh 3mo ago
yes. and driven by long term sicknesses like, for example, burnout, cancer, and work-related older age issues. dropping phone-in sick calls will sure as hell end those /s this whole package is driven by populist disinformation.

xen0 3mo ago

The reported average of 20 days is likely skewed by a small number of long leaves and I suspect* is nowhere near typical for the median worker (it's nearly taking a day off every two weeks). Longer leave already requires a doctor's approval so the proposal to require that for all leave is unlikely to change much other than drown doctors in more busy work. *I can't find much for the 'median' amount of leave taken per year.

uniqueuid 3mo ago
That's exactly right. This article [1] mentions 40% of sick days being from people with long-term (> 6 weeks) illnesses. That's data from one of Germany's large insurers. While I don't know the proportion of those with long-term illnesses, if we assume it's at most 10%, then the average for people with "normal" short-term illnesses is at most 12 days. So much lower. [1] https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/sind-die-deutschen-wirklich-haeufiger-krank-als-andere-europaeer-100.html https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/sind-die-deutschen-wirklich-h...
- realaleris149 3mo ago
  > from one of Germany's large insurers Is this voluntary insurance? It changes meaning to the statistic to % from those that made an insurance.
  - uniqueuid 3mo ago
    I assume you mean there might be a self-selection issue with people who are voluntarily ("privately") insured, as compared to those who have the normal state-mandated ("gesetzlich") insurance? This data is from AOK which is one of the state-mandated insurers. It insures around 2M people, and my gut feeling is that they are not terribly unrepresentative of the workforce as a whole. But of course the point is, everyone with a tiny bit of true data could tell much more precise stories, and the journalists (as usual) didn't care or didn't think it would fly with readers.
    - TomK32 3mo ago

Qem 3mo ago

I wonder if lost productivity from sick leave days is offset by preserved productivity of all coworkers that were not infected by people that felt obliged to show up sick with flu or other communicable disease.

pixelpoet 3mo ago
We're about to find out! Not to mention all the doctors who'll be getting sick from hordes of people with basic cold and flu piling up in their practices. Man, Merz truly is a genius! You can tell he's had so much experience in normal jobs, truly understands the average worker's situation.
- varispeed 3mo ago
  It's classism. Working class are suspicious. Let's check if they are _not_ lying, wholesale.
- joe_mamba 3mo ago
  >Man, Merz truly is a genius! You can tell he's had so much experience in normal jobs, truly understands the average worker's situation. What else do you expect from a Blackrock veteran and possible trojan horse? Heck, I don't even blame him, same how I don't blame a scorpion for stinging the frog, it's just in its nature, I blame the Germans that voted for him. As a democracy, every such national fuckup(and they have a lot of those) is 100% on them and so are the consequences. You reap what you sow.
  - wqaatwt 3mo ago
    Well they did have Merkel who did more or less nothing useful for 15 years and dug the hole Germany is in now by kicking the can down they road.. It doesn’t even matter what Merz does or doesn’t do at this point, everything will have disastrous effects on a significant proportion of the population
mstaoru 3mo ago
In Asia people with communicable diseases usually wear masks. They're not obliged to wear them, it's just common courtesy.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

anthonj 3mo ago

"As part of Merz's proposals, from January next year, workers will no longer be able to get a sick note over the phone. They must visit a doctor in person and on the first day of illness." Can't wait to share the sbahn with feverish people or seeing a live diarrhea attack.

HiPhish 3mo ago
I had a migraine attack recently; I was able to call my doctor and have him write a sick note for a day over the phone and have it transmitted digitally to my employer. What the fuck would be the point of tormenting myself for half an hour on a noisy public bus in bright daylight in the middle of summer, the waiting in a bright room for half an hour, wait at the bus stop in bright daylight for up to an hour for the next bus back (since I don't know how long I will be at the doctor's office I cannot plan my trip back) and then torture myself for another half hour on the bus back? It's not like the doctor can do anything but take my word for it when I'm in his office anyway. There is no migraine test you can run. So you might as well cut out all the bullshit and let me rest so I can recover better.
- Obscurity4340 3mo ago
  The point is there must be a boot ever-closely infringing on your neck and your reasonable breakdown of the impending absurdity about to play out just doesnt take any of that into account.
NekkoDroid 3mo ago
> Can't wait to share the sbahn with feverish people or seeing a live diarrhea attack. The 2 results I see from this change in policy is: 1. People go sick to work and possibly infect other people 2. Doctors give multi day sick notes (when 1 day would have been enough) to not be bothered again the next day, resulting in people being home longer when not needed. I genuinely don't understand who looked at this policy change and thought "this will probably help with people working more". The only people that will be working more are the "Hausärzte".
- 3mo ago

xjrk58x 3mo ago

Doctors in Germany love to put you off work for longer than necessary. Usually the whole week. I totally see that this will result in average going up instead of down.

tredre3 3mo ago
Do people consult doctors to obtain medical leaves shorter than a week? It seems like a waste of time for everybody involved. Either the problem is bad enough that you need time off and you might as well round it up to a week, or the problem is benign enough that you don't need time off at all.
- jann 3mo ago
  That's the whole point, before they would only need to do it on the fourth day of sickness, now you need to go to a doctor on the first day. More workload for doctors and either sick people coming to the office infecting others, or getting the whole week off immediately.

sunsetSamurai 3mo ago

why are governments always trying to find something to fuck over the working class?

inigyou 3mo ago
Because we keep voting for a certain kind of government. CDU is right-wing - formerly center-right but now trying to win voteshare back from the AfD.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

IveSeenItAll 3mo ago

Yeah, I have no idea how any of these figures are derived, but... I have a hard time imagining a planet where 1.8 weeks of our Polish employees and 2.7 weeks of our Dutch employees are 'lost due to sick leave' per annum. Days? Maybe. Weeks? On average? Nah... But, please, do continue your explanations of "see, this is why Europe can't compete"

pelorat 3mo ago
[flagged]
- IveSeenItAll 3mo ago
  You're deservedly getting downvoted for this unprompted outburst of racism, but please: describe, in detail, how your colleague, regardless of country of origin, gets away with at least 8 hours of absence every month with a Dutch company, without triggering a remediation program with the bedrijfsarts.
317070 3mo ago
I probably get there, but I have young kids. But yes, these are averages between 1 person having 12 weeks and 12 people with 1 week. It's most likely power law distributed, so the average will feel weird. There are people with cancer, severe car crashes and other horrible but temporary medical conditions in this average.
- IveSeenItAll 3mo ago
  > There are people with cancer Oh, yeah, I know. One of our top (young! sad!) people in .nl has been intermittently-working for, like, months now due to that, unfortunately. But... that doesn't count as "sick leave"! Because, it's, like entirely foreseeable! What is happening is that they, through the medical consultancy working for the employer (i.e. "us"), submit their proposed working schedule a few weeks in advance. This will have several 'non-work' days (around chemo), some 'partial-work' days, and so on, basically with hourly granularity. "We" then plan and account accordingly: "we" pay for a few hours, insurance for a few, national-level insurance for a lot, but all "we" see is a plan for actual working time. Conflating any of that with "oh, you can just stay home whenever you want" is sick and wrong, like so much of the discussion here around "Europe." I mean, you get eviscerated for wrongly naming a Chicago suburb, but blanket statements about an entire continent are de rigeur

moi2388 3mo ago

I wonder which spreadsheet manager assumed that if I am sick 1 day per month, I actually am also 1 day less productive. I am not; the same amount of work gets done. Probably more because I’m not half-sick on the job for 3 days instead.

OptionOfT 3mo ago

Belgium law allows employers to enforce a sick note starting day 1. I joined an employer that didn't require this, and it was such a breath of fresh air. At our local doctor, the first 5 hours of his workday were comprised solely of writing notes for people to stay home. It is a waste of (recovery) time to enforce everybody to get a note starting day one. And describing the situation in the US on this to validate these changes is insane. Many people in the food business don't have paid sick leave, and as such lose pay when they don't come to work. And those people should absolutely have the ability to stay home without putting their finances in jeopardy. It should be a sign out front: we have paid sick leave for our people so they don't feel forced to come to work sick.

joe_mamba 3mo ago
From which perspective are you talking about? Workers in Belgium or the US?
cassianoleal 3mo ago
Even more than a day is terrible. If I have a cold or the flu, the last thing I want to do is to go to the doctor. I'd rather just rest up, it goes away in 3-5 days and I can be back at work. The need for a doctor's notes means one of: * I explain to my employer, probably don't get paid for those days, and might face disciplinary action or eventually get fired * I go to the doctor, making my recovery less likely, increasing my stress levels which are already high due to my body fighting an infection, and risk infecting others or worse, catch something else myself for being made to cohabit space with other sick individuals * I work even though I'm sick. If I do that from the office, I risk contaminating colleagues - and other people I interact with There's no winning.
- joe_mamba 3mo ago
  > it goes away in 3-5 days and I can be back at work. Sitting 5 days at home without a doctor seeing you on the basis of "trust me bro it's just a flue it will pass soon" also seems dangerous since plenty of people suck at self diagnosing themselves and end up more sick or even dead by ignoring major issues thinking it's something small that will pass. And that's besides the trust part where people are gonna exploit this for extra vacation. If we just let everyone self diagnose themselves all the time at home, the graveyards will be full. Forcing sick people to see a doctor after X days feels like the best for both worlds.

HiPhish 3mo ago

What pisses me off about all this is that the there is the underlying assumption that the working class is with the lazy working class. No, the problem is efficiency and incompetence at the top levels, not at the bottom. Running faster in the wrong direction won't get us any closes to the goal. Let me make a proposal and you tell me what you think of it. I'd say the fundamental problem is career culture, the idea that mobility is valued over reliability. What I mean by that the culture of collecting good-boy points by starting projects, building PowerPoint slides and giving the appearance of getting work done, all in order to get a promotion and jump ship to the next higher position before your sloppiness catches up with you. Someone else is left holding the bag. If people had to actually own what they shit out in the long-term things would be much different. You either fall or rise with whatever projects you start. You might be able to bullshit your way through the corporate structures for a year or two, but ten years? No, if your project is to last for ten years you better put actual effort into it, not just the bare minimum to produce Potemkin slides. Look at Stuttgart 21[1]. The reason it has been moved to 2031 (at the very least) is not because of the grunt worker being too slow. It is systemic failure at the top. Is it incompetence or malice? I don't know, you pick which option is worse. What I do know is that it cannot be the common worker on the ground who has to pay the price for it. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21

TomK32 3mo ago
Fehmarnbelttunnel is the better example because you can see the difference in legislation between Denmark and Germany. Denmark passes laws for projects of such importance while in Germany the project has to hop over every existing legislative hurdle that are great for preventing smaller projects going bad, but do cost extra time and money on a larger scale.

ilc 3mo ago

Disclaimer: I'm a US Citizen / Worker, white collar. My first job had: Unlimited sick time. Take it when you need it. No doctor's note. I think you may have needed one at the week mark. Never hit at that employer. Most employers have been limited sick, with a note at a week. I can't imagine note on day 1. That's just... nuts. The lack of trust shown there is massive. I'm making calls on stuff far larger than my sick days. If you can't trust me on sick days, how can you trust me to do my job?

joe_mamba 3mo ago
>The lack of trust shown there is massive. All systems based on trust eventually get abused. Not by everyone of course, but catching a few with their hands in the cookie jar is enough to trigger a rethink on the whole trust-based thing. Most corporate German workers I knew were taking a few extra vacation days a year as sick leave, or using fake sick leave(often weeks or months!) as revenge if their employer didn't give them their desired raise or promotion. Their own admission, it's basically an open secret when you move there. Hell, we had German colleagues that would mysteriously get "sick" exactly before the customer delivery crunch, every-single-time, like clockwork. The problem is when this becomes culturally normalized, more and more people do it as they see those abusing it get away with extra vacation days so then they think why wouldn't they do it too, otherwise they're suckers, right? And so after a while, the abuse starts to become so rampant and obvious to the employers as well, which leads to increasing the cost of doing business in Germany, and so everyone gets the collective punishment if they still wish to keep their jobs and not lose them to neighbouring countries that have cheaper labor because workers there don't abuse this system(yet). That's the same thing that ended 100% remote/WFH jobs and triggered the return to office mandates, too many people obviously scamming the trust based system pretending to work while actually doing nothing. >I'm making calls on stuff far larger than my sick days. If you can't trust me on sick days, how can you trust me to do my job? These policies aren't meant to target the German workers making important decisions who have a lot of bargaining power, but those on menial jobs to keep them working on the hamster wheel. It's what the communist system was designed to do to workers too. You keep them busy all day conforming to stupid bureaucracy and queues, and they're too busy to protest or switch jobs, forcing them into indentured servitude. Merz is a product of Blackrock after all. So it's either a 50 IQ move or a long term 500 IQ move. Anyway, this isn't the first time in recent history when labor privileges were scaled back in Germany. Agenda 2010[1] did similar things, mostly by defanging unions. The truth is that those crazy good perks were gotten by the working class when Germany was the world industry leader post-WW2, but now Germany's industry output is at a 20 year low(thanks to a series of political and corporate self-owns) so it can't afford the same perks like in the past, and needs to scale back its generosity if it wishes to stay solvent. At the end of the day it's just business, and you need business to fund the welfare state. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010

frb 3mo ago

I don’t understand Merz’s obsession with this sick leave topic, like this is going solve the economic crisis in Germany and calling people lazy will score points with voters? Fun fact: research shows it’s probably not better or worse than before, just more rigorously reported through a new digital system since couple years (before that people needed to send paper slip notes to their employers and insurance, which some just wouldn’t do so the data was incomplete). On the other hand, they explained that they want to go back to the rules like they were before Covid. Effectively, this means that sick leave notes can be fixed contractually between employers and employees and a lot of companies and contracts have more flexible rules as also most HR departments don’t feel like dealing with the bureaucracy.

stop50 3mo ago
Nobody understands it. Merz never worked. The last time he worked was when he did his service in the Bundeswehr. His Politics can be described as Anti-Merkel: Immigrants are the Evil and the woking class must work for the lowest pay possible and preferably die before they can enjoy retirement; and lastly nobody is right of the CDU.
- wqaatwt 3mo ago
  Merkel dug the hole Germany’s economy is in now. No meaningful reform and disastrous energy policies for 15 years..
inigyou 3mo ago
It is very ordinary conservative neoliberal politics, isn't it? People with these politics are always complaining that people aren't working hard enough.

arnejenssen 3mo ago

I'm Norwegian. I have not taken a single day of sick leave (M51). I believe that if I get sick, it is my fault and responsibility, and I should not burden the employer or public sector with that. In 2009 i fell off a bike and hurt a knee. My fault. So I took 5 days of my vacation to stay home.

uniqueuid 3mo ago
I can relate to the attitude, but I also suspect it's a lot easier to live like this in one of the two richest countries in the world with the least stressful labor markets (going by the experience of my friends who emigrated there).
Melatonic 3mo ago
So you go to work sick ?
- arnejenssen 3mo ago
  I work even if I have a cold. Luckily I never had symptoms of flue. I was down with Epstein-Barr/mononucleosis for 12-14 days in 2004, and then I stayed home (home from PhD studies).
  - roryirvine 3mo ago
    Should you not then take responsibility for the additional sick leave taken by your colleagues as a result of you exposing them to your infectious diseases? It's quite possible that the total sick leave you've caused is substantially higher than it would have been had you simply stayed home when ill.
cyberpunk 3mo ago
What’s the insurance setup like in norway? In germany at least, your insurance pays for (at least part) of this time, and since its mandatory to pay it and hundreds of euros a month, I’m not in any way inclined to give up my precious family time (holidays) to save my insurer money. I have a hard time understanding how one would feel otherwise. Also, generally, I can’t think of a time i had off work where something ultimately failed to be delivered because of it, I’ll typically put in some extra time etc when i’m back if a deadline is looming. So who really loses?

IshKebab 3mo ago

Stupid idea. Doctors are incentivised to just give out a sick note to anyone that asks. There's no downside for them if they do that, and if they don't, they get complaints from the public. It seems likely to me that we will end up with private companies being paid by employers to evaluate your health and determine if you can go off sick. Not the nicest solution but I don't see what other option there is given the level of abuse. Either that or companies will drastically lower the amount of paid sick leave they give, maybe to zero like in the US. I think that would be even worse.

yugioh3 3mo ago
more than 80% of workers in the US have paid sick leave without doctors notes required. varies by state. not sure where you’re getting your information…

gerikson 3mo ago

Since the late 80s, Sweden has a system where on the first day when you're off work due to illness, you're not paid ("karensdag"). I started working just before this system was put in place, and there was so much sick leave claimed that people were seriously wondering why Swedish workplaces were so unhealthy. A year after the reform, the numbers fell precipitously.

cess11 3mo ago
Clearly it was appreciated, but not by bureaucrats.

justafewwords 3mo ago

[Weekendmodus:] First the thing seem to be, that there were a depressive pilot, some years ago, who made an "extended-suicide". The people across Germany were told, "It was, cos the company hasn't known, that a doctor issued a 'sick note' (In Terms of: When he was unable to work - he should't fly a plane with more than 100 people on board.')." There was a need for a soulution, so my bet was on the workers side: "If the doctors send the "sick-note" directly to the employer (via "Fax" or email), you'll save a Stamp at minimum, or doesn't have to visit your workplace, ill." Everybody who went sick one time, knows that it is not easy every time, to visit someone when you're ill, not? That is one of the Mistakes somebody would take granted, by those what the media seem to hide for -you know "generating hype and clicks about". And for the 2nd, (verry distracting by now): If doctors now have to inform employers within day one, that'll fit it perfect. So no "hysteria", no "hype". People seem to forget fast -in not my words: "Just a school class who died by that extended suicide" but in memory of that... by remembering it... regards (-:

siva7 3mo ago

If you need such laws to be enforced in order to keep your workforce on leash... you are either a very uninspiring employer or you are the current german chancellor. Good bye german economy with such an uninspiring leadership.

karussell 3mo ago

Of course sick leave has increased in Germany, but the main reason is reporting. Since 2022 in Germany there is a new electronic sick note and doctors report every certificate directly to insurers. Before that short illnesses very often went uncounted. I find it quite concerning and clickbaity that this reason is also included but comes relative late in the article: One major reason for the rise in sick leave is better reporting, IGES wrote in its report published in January.

miohtama 3mo ago

Berlin public servants spent 30% of their work days on a paid holiday or sick leave https://x.com/posta_octavian/status/2072672993126334709?s=20 https://x.com/posta_octavian/status/2072672993126334709?s=20

somedude895 3mo ago
People on HN don't understand what Germany's like these days. I know people who have been off work for over a year still getting paid quite handsomely, even though they're perfectly fit to work. There's been a lady in Berlin recently who has been on sick leave for two years but still tried to run for some office and was defended for it by the usual suspects. It's really out of control. Doctors are handing out sick notes like candy. Germany has developed a really unhealthy relationship to work ethics after years of being coddled with benefits and victim ideology.
unparagoned 3mo ago
Paid holiday isn’t a work day

cess11 3mo ago

If this is actually enforced it'll probably change healthcare in Germany quite a lot. Imagine that people infected with something from Caliciviridae, as parents tend to be every or every other year when the kids are small, has to enter medical facilities to get sick leave from work. Highly contagious, shits and/or vomiting, not uncommonly together with fever. As a medical practitioner you'll quickly find a way to work around this and make yourself able to hand out notes without bringing the infected remotely close to your actual care facilities.

tclover 3mo ago

[flagged]

mstaoru 3mo ago

I lived and worked in China for 10+ years. It is very very rare that people take sick leaves there, or any kind of vacation. Partly it's considered "not good for the team" if someone is missing, so it's peer pressure to stay and grind. Partly its the fact that everything there is efficient - you can go to the hospital in the morning, see any doctor within 15 min, and do whatever tests within another 15 min. (In Germany in April I booked the closest endoscopy slot... in November.) Now I work in Germany. Vacation and sick leaves here are... very generous. In fact I'm writing this while on vacation. In my company it's often hard to set up a meeting with 4+ people because for months in advance at least 1-2 are on vacation. I don't want to express any opinion on this. One interesting thing is how people here say "work smarter, not harder". I don't know how they imagine China, but I promise you people work smart AND hard there. The results are obvious.