School and daycare closings: the second lockdown hits parents and business so hard

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In the course of the second lockdown, the Germans were able to work significantly less than in normal times.

59.2 million working days are expected to be canceled from October to mid-February - solely due to closed daycare centers and schools, quarantine and Covid-19 diseases.

Short-time work, layoffs and other factors are not yet included.

This is shown by an analysis by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), which is part of the Federal Employment Agency.

Compared to times before the crisis, this corresponds to a decrease of 1.2 percent of all working hours.

This is considerable, explain IAB researchers Enzo Weber and Susanne Wanger: "The loss of work affects the economy in addition to the ordered closings in sectors such as catering and retail."

The closings of schools and day-care centers are particularly significant.

This posed considerable challenges for many parents, especially since many have already exhausted their vacation for 2020, according to the IAB.

Around 1.2 million people could therefore not do their job.

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The resulting loss of work amounts to 37.4 million days from October to February.

According to calculations by the IAB, this means that more than four times as many working days are lost as with Covid-19 diseases.

In addition, around 17.7 million working days were lost due to arranged quanta.

According to the Infection Protection Act, those with children under the age of twelve who cannot organize other care are entitled to continued payment of their wages.

In addition, legally insured persons can receive child sickness benefit for longer this year: namely 20 days per parent (40 days for single parents).

"Compared to strikes, the failure is enormous"

But how badly does the failure really hit the economy?

In order to better classify this, one can, for example, consider how many hours are lost as a result of collective bargaining disputes.

Companies always perceive these failures as a great burden.

But the current situation is apparently even more serious.

"Compared to strikes, the failure is enormous," says Hagen Lesch, tariff expert at the employer-related Institute of the German Economy (IW) in Cologne.

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Because even in 1984 - the ultimate year of strikes - there were significantly fewer working days due to strikes and lockouts than now due to the corona-related measures.

At that time, two unions, IG Metall and IG Druck und Papier, wanted to enforce the 35-hour week.

There were week-long strikes in which almost 400,000 workers took part.

On the other hand, there were also so-called lockouts: employers did not let around 170,000 employees into the companies and did not pay them any money during this time.

The result: Almost 6.5 million working days were lost, according to Lesch.

Slightly higher loss of work than in the first lockdown

The recent past has not seen anywhere near this high.

The last major strike year with rail and postal strikes was 2015. At that time, according to the IW expert, 1.1 million working days were lost.

In 1992, after a labor dispute in the public sector, there were around 1.5 million.

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Lesch points out, however, that the distinction between arithmetical and actual failure is important.

In many cases, colleagues have to take over the tasks, and things can be reworked.

The lost gross value added is likely to be significantly lower, he estimates.

Compared to the first lockdown in spring 2020, the loss of work is now greater, emphasizes the IAB: In March and April, 58.6 million working days were lost - 600,000 fewer than last.

The lockdown was also much shorter.

The short-time working also led to a considerable loss of work in both phases.

According to IAB researcher Weber, it is not yet possible to say exactly how big this is at the moment, since it takes a delay to show how many people were affected and how many hours were lost.

The relationship between short-time working on the one hand and closed daycare centers and schools on the other is likely to have changed.

After all, around six million people were on short-time work at its peak last year.

In the end it was only a good two million.

The next few days will show whether schools and day-care centers will soon be able to reopen and parents will be able to work more accordingly when a decision is made to extend the lockdown.

Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) will meet again virtually with the heads of government of the federal states on Wednesday. IW researcher Lesch supports a step-by-step approach so that schools and daycare centers are opened where the incidence is below 50.