German workers take nearly 15 sick days a year. The government's response? Dock their pay.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pushing a plan that would cut wages from the very first sick day, while dangling a bonus for anyone who calls in sick five times or fewer. The logic: nudge people with minor sniffles back to their desks instead of reaching for the phone.
On paper, the numbers look damning. Germany tops Europe's absenteeism charts. Sick leave is costing businesses around €82 billion a year. In 2023, workers called in sick nearly 20 times — a record. Merz didn't mince words: "Is that really necessary?"
But here's what the wage-docking plan misses entirely.
People aren't staying home because the system is too generous. They're staying home because work has become unbearable. Burned-out employees — ground down by layoffs, return-to-office mandates, toxic managers, and the relentless pressure to perform — are using sick days the way a pressure valve uses steam. Not to cheat the system. To survive it.
Punishing them for that won't fix productivity. It'll just make people show up sick, miserable, and even less effective than before.
Germany has a burnout problem dressed up as an absenteeism problem. And docking pay is the wrong prescription entirely.