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The listening exercises in Business Spotlight Übungsheft (p. 5) are based on the article “How much sick pay should we get?” (Names & News, p. 8). Here, we provide you with the audio file and transcript.
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How much sick pay should we get?
Twenty years ago, German employees took, on -average, about eight days per year off work when they were sick. The number of sick days in German companies has been rising, however. In 2024, workers took 14.8 days off. Naturally, when workers don’t work, it hurts productivity and economic growth.
Employer groups are unhappy, claiming that Germany’s system of statutory sick paygesetzliches Krankengeldstatutory sick pay (SSP) is too generous and encourages people to skip workblaumachenskip work. It is true that, when the process of call in sicksich krankmeldencalling in sick was simplified, during the pandemic, the number of sick days rose significantly. Of course, this could mean that sickness had been previouslyzuvor, früherpreviously be underreportedunvollkommen erfasst seinunderreported.
Other countries, such as the UK, have much less generous SSP, and British workers take far fewer days off because of sickness — on average, 4.4 days in 2024. However, if higher SSP encourages more sick days, lower SSP encourages people to go to work when they’re not well — and, ultimatelyletztendlichultimately, this also hurts productivity, through delayed recoveryverzögerte Erholung/ Genesungdelayed recovery and the spread of infectious disease. During the pandemic, half of all OECD countries introduced or expanded SSP, showing that, in many cases, the incentiveAnreizincentive to stay home and get well hadn’t been strong enough. However, Germany, which was the first country in the world to create SSP, in 1883, may be wondering if their incentive might be too strong.