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
Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
61–70 of 107 posts
Re: Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
#62Yeah, 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"
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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.
Re: Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> 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 adva…
In the OECD data averaged here, I reckon this chemo therapy is counted as sick leave. On a first search, the metric seemed to be defined as "(compensated) absenteeism from work due to illness, days per employee per year"
Re: Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
#64I 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 som…
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.
Re: Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 adva…
In the OECD data averaged here, I reckon this chemo therapy is counted as sick leave. On a first search, the metric seemed to be defined as "(compensated) absenteeism from work due to illness, days per employee per year"
In .nl and even .pl, once someone gets into "chemo" territory, they're no longer a full-time employee for at least part of the year. I have no idea how this is reflected in OECD data, but I would not be entirely unsurprised if this is a reprise of the "women in .nl don't work" trope, whereas in-actual-fact it's sort-of the opposite, except not full-time.
Re: Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 g…
> System based on trust eventually get abused. This is true. The tyrrany of the untrustworthy is that they destroy society for the rest of us. The best thing we can do is control our spaces where it can be controlled. Don't hire untrustworthy people, be extremely punishing to those who break trust. Rule 0 of any good community is: don't act in a way that makes me create a new rule. Workspaces are as much community as…
In the USA the most untrustworthy among us who in your words are "destroying society for the rest of us" are employers, as wage theft by employers is the largest form of theft in the country.
If workspaces are as much a community as anywhere else, the fact that the rot starts at the top should be the most major concern. People taking sick days seems like it falls way down the list of concerns in trying to get the American workspace ethical and overcome the tyranny of the untrustworthy (employers) of which you speak.
https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-...
"In 2019, the total cost of every robbery in the country was $482 million. The cost of wage theft was more than 100 times that number." https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-bil...
"More than $1.5 billion in stolen wages recovered for workers between 2021 and 2023" https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-2021-23/
Re: Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
#67If 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.
Re: Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
#68Since 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.
Clearly it was appreciated, but not by bureaucrats.
Re: Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> System based on trust eventually get abused. This is true. The tyrrany of the untrustworthy is that they destroy society for the rest of us. The best thing we can do is control our spaces where it can be controlled. Don't hire untrustworthy people, be extremely punishing to those who break trust. Rule 0 of any good community is: don't act in a way that makes me create a new rule. Workspaces are as much community as…
In the USA the most untrustworthy among us who in your words are "destroying society for the rest of us" are employers, as wage theft by employers is the largest form of theft in the country. If workspaces are as much a community as anywhere else, the fact that the rot starts at the top should be the most major concern. People taking sick days seems like it falls way down the list of concerns in trying to get the Ame…
>In the USA the most untrustworthy [...] are employers [...]tyranny of the untrustworthy (employers)
Have you ever been an employer? Like if being a trustworthy employer is so easy why aren't you and many other people doing it to set an example? How come all employers are tyrannical?
IMHO your blame is misplaced. A lot of the issues you point out are not due to employers, but due to government regulations or lack thereof, and the issues of the way the economy and financial systems are setup to incentivize, which the government is also responsible of regulating and enforcing. Without proper regulation and enforcement to even the playing field, the only ones who manage to stay in business will be the unethical ones and all those gets dragged into the mud.
Try being an employer for a year and find out for yourself. It's easy to just say employers are tyrannical when you've never been on the other side and never had to deal with workers like you who automatically blame society's woes on you just because you're a business owner as if S/M business owners make and enforce the laws.
Re: Sick leave: Germany rising but not the worst in Europe
#70Belgium 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 the…
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, inc…
> 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.