Sick leave among employees in Germany reached a new high in the first half of 2022.
The Techniker Krankenkasse (TK) reports this with reference to its health report.
According to this, employees insured with TK were missing an average of 9.1 days in the first six months of this year.
"The main reason for the absences is still sick leave due to respiratory diseases such as flu and colds," said TK CEO Jens Baas when the report was published.
According to Baas, the number of sick leave increased noticeably in the first quarter.
"After the sickness rates initially fell again in April and May, there was a significant increase again in June," Baas continued.
According to the Techniker Krankenkasse, employees were absent an average of 6.8 days in the first half of 2021, and 7.9 days in 2020.
The number of days lost due to a coronavirus infection was 0.32 per employed person in the first half of 2022.
Although Covid-19 continues to play a subordinate role in the number of sick leave, there were significantly more days absent than in previous years.
In the first half of 2021, the number of days absent due to an infection was 0.08, in the same period of 2020 it was 0.02 days.
Effect of distance and hygiene rules
According to TK, sick leave fell to a record low in the first quarter of 2021.
At that time, the CEO Baas associated the low number of days absent with the hygiene measures introduced to contain the corona virus: "It has been shown that the distance and hygiene rules as well as the limited contact options also prevent the spread of other infectious agents," said Baas in 2021.
The Health Report 2022 also addresses the longer-term consequences of an infection with Sars-Cov-2 and its impact on working life.
“Last year, long-Covid only affected around one percent of all employees with TK insurance who were formerly corona infected and had virus detection in 2020,” said Baas.
The number seems low: "But these are only the patients who have also been on sick leave with this specific diagnosis - we also assume that there are a large number of unreported cases," he added.