According to a study, the fourth and fifth corona waves caused an estimated 383 million hours of lost work.
The working hours per employee decreased by 8.4 hours from October 2021 to February 2022 due to increased sick leave and quarantine measures, as the Nuremberg Institute for Labor Market and Occupational Research (IAB) explains in the calculation published on Monday.
This alone results in a decrease in the volume of work by 1.5 percent compared to the five months before the Corona crisis.
The team of authors, Susanne Wanger and Enzo Weber, explained that the loss of working hours due to short-time work, layoffs or the lack of recruitment are not included.
The main reason for the absences in the fourth and fifth waves was, according to the information, absences from work due to illness.
In the second wave, on the other hand, closed schools and daycare centers were primarily responsible for the loss of work.