In Germany, Fortune reports that prominent company CEOs blame the country’s economic problems on the “lazy” Generation Z, who takes sick leave almost 20 times a year.
The publication writes that millions of Germans take sick leave to avoid working at a rate almost four times higher than in the UK. This gives a whole new meaning to the country’s nickname, “The Sick Man of Europe.”
Research by the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK), Germany’s largest health insurance fund, showed that in 2023, employees missed an average of 19.4 working days due to illness, a record high. Another record year of sickness absence may be on the cards after TK’s 5.7 million insured employees registered 14.3 sick days in the first 9 months of this year.
Although Germany has primarily avoided a technical recession, the German economy contracted by 0.3% in 2023 and is expected to decline by 0.2% this year.
In 2022, employees in Germany took 15 days of sick leave. In comparison, in the UK, workers lost 5.7 days due to sickness in the same year. The German Association of Pharmaceutical Research Companies (VFA) claims that without the higher-than-average number of sick days, the German economy would have grown by 0.5% in 2023 rather than shrinking by 0.3%. According to the VFA, Germany’s high sickness rate cost its economy approximately 26 billion euros last year.
These results have not escaped the attention of German employers, who seem unconvinced that their employees are really sick. One unnamed executive at a leading manufacturing company told the FT that workers are “completely unwilling” to understand the sacrifices required for the country’s economy to thrive. He singled out “careless” young employees as a particularly problematic case.
“And then everyone wonders why Germany is the sick man of Europe,” the executive said.