More depression – fewer colds: sick leave in 2021

A new analysis by DAK-Gesundheit documents absenteeism in the second year of the pandemic. According to this, there were a third fewer respiratory diseases in 2021, but a peak in mental illnesses.

In the second year of the pandemic, employee absenteeism in Germany fell slightly.
In 2021, the sickness rate was 4.0 percent, 0.1 points below the previous year's level. According to the current absence analysis by DAK-Gesundheit for around 2.4 million employed insured persons of the fund, respiratory diseases have fallen sharply. Coughs and other colds caused a third less absence from work than in 2019. At the same time, days missed due to mental illnesses continued to rise. Absences due to depression, for example, reached a new high. In 2021, every DAK-insured employee was absent from work for an average of 14.5 days while on sick leave.
The data from the third largest health insurance company shows a decline, especially in reported respiratory diseases. Before the pandemic, there were around 221 days of absence for every 100 DAK-insured employees due to respiratory illness, in 2021 there were only 146 days - a third less. Confirmed corona infections only played a minor role in 2021, with around 19 days of absence per 100 insured people.
“So far, sickness rates have fortunately not increased during the pandemic.
This is due to the extremely low level of respiratory diseases,” says Andreas Storm, CEO of DAK-Gesundheit. “The hygiene measures to contain the epidemic have worked and also prevented the transmission of other diseases. What is alarming, however, is the continued increase in absenteeism due to mental illnesses.” The largest share of sick leave in 2021 was due to problems of the musculoskeletal system, mental illnesses and injuries such as broken legs.
Most days missed were due to back pain or other musculoskeletal problems. More than a fifth of the loss of work could be explained by this. Educators had the greatest increase in these days of absence compared to pre-Corona (plus 13 percent). Days of absence due to musculoskeletal disorders also continued to rise among hospital staff (plus 7 percent) and in geriatric care (plus 5 percent). When it comes to mental illnesses, the analysis records a new high of 276 days of absence per 100 insured people.
Depression alone caused 108 days of this. “During the corona pandemic, many people feel stressed and are under tension. This obviously leads to an increase in days missed due to back pain and certain psychological diagnoses,” says Andreas Storm. “It is worrying that for many people with depression, the illness is becoming more protracted during the pandemic.” Employees with a corresponding diagnosis on their sick note are absent for an average of 61 days. “We are seeing structural changes in sick leave, which are also a signal to employers to prepare for them.” The total sick leave decreased only very slightly compared to the previous year, from 4.1 to 4.0 percent.
On each day of 2021, an average of 40 out of 1,000 employees were on sick leave. The vast majority (57.3 percent) got through the second Corona year without a single sick note. Sectors with a wide range of options for home office and digital working had fewer absences than others in 2021: The analysis shows a below-average sickness rate of 2.3 and 2.9 percent for the data processing industry as well as for banks and insurance companies.
These sectors traditionally have lower sickness rates, but the gap to average became particularly clear under pandemic conditions. The number of sick days in the healthcare sector (4.7 percent) and in the transport, warehousing and courier services sector (4.5 percent) was well above average. Accordingly, employees in transport and health professions had the most days of absence per capita: an average of 18 and 17 days per year respectively.
For the current sick leave analysis, the Berlin IGES Institute evaluated the data of around 2.4 million employed DAK insured people throughout Germany.

Source: deutschesgesundheitsportal.de