Update from April 13, 2026:
According to a report in the Bild newspaper, citing coalition circles, the maternity leave day was once again an issue during reform talks between the government parties last weekend. To reduce sickness absence, drastic measures are necessary for employees. This includes the six-week continued payment of wages. The current time frame in which the employer continues to pay the wages of a sick employee could be shortened. There are also discussions about employers only having to pay continued wages once a year. If illness were to occur again, the health insurance company would then have to step in with the lower sick pay.
Update from June 12, 2025:
A current survey by the Techniker Krankenkasse shows that the majority of employers are also against a reduction in continued wage payments, which the reintroduction of a waiting day would lead to. Accordingly, 65 percent of the managing directors and human resources and health managers surveyed spoke out against a cut. Spiegel, among others, reported on the study entitled “#whatsnext 2025 – Working healthily in challenging times”.
Original message from January 7, 2025:
Allianz boss Oliver Bäte has suggested reintroducing the so-called waiting day. This means that employees would not be paid wages on the first day of illness, but only from the second.
His thought behind it: Sickness rates in Germany have repeatedly reached peak levels in recent years. Employees in the Federal Republic are sick for an average of 20 days a year. This is extraordinarily high compared to other European countries, which implies that many people in Germany are making a dent while pocketing money from their employers and the state, according to Bäte’s argument.
This in turn leads to a cost problem. The economist Monika Schnitzer, among others, had previously spoken out in favor of a waiting day. Nicolas Ziebarth from the Mannheim Leibniz Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) also brought similar ideas into the discussion
This is how HR experts look at the proposal
Bäte’s suggestion sparked a heated debate – also in the HR scene. “When we talk about the fact that people are increasingly calling in sick, we should not tinker with the symptoms, but rather look at the causes,” writes Magdalena Rogl, Diversity & Inclusion Lead at Microsoft Germany on Linkedin. In her opinion, employers and the state should rather ask themselves: Why does their work make many people sick? Why do many people feel overwhelmed by work? Why do some people lack motivation for their job?
Rogl also emphasizes that doubt and punishment are not suitable means of reducing sickness absence in the future. We don’t need “distrust, but psychological security, not pressure, but motivation, not human resources, but human relations”. The DEI expert sees managers primarily as responsible for creating a working environment that is motivated and characterized by trust: “If we cannot trust our employees, then we as managers have already made a mistake when hiring them.”
Aniela Liepold, human resources manager at the vehicle accessories retailer ALUCA, sees it differently. She reports on Linkedin that the human resources department has been struggling with the issue of incapacity for work for a long time. There are regular “miracle cures” for employees after six weeks – the time during which employees still receive their full wages despite being absent due to illness. Afterwards, some of the people in question would take sick leave again for six weeks after two to four weeks of work.
However, Liepold does not see maternity leave as the solution to this problem and instead suggests: “We would be helped by doctors who are aware of the impact of sick leave on the German economy and use them accordingly, jurisdictions that support the employer and control instruments on the issues of creditability and verification of illnesses.”
Save costs and worsen the corporate culture?
Bastian Schmidtbleicher-Lück, managing director of BGM provider Moove, summarizes the advantages and disadvantages of a waiting day. In addition to the cost savings resulting from a waiting day, the regulation would be a “signal for personal responsibility”. “An uncompensated first day of illness provides an incentive to think carefully about whether a day at work is really impossible if you have minor symptoms,” he writes on Linkedin. “Some advocates compare this to a deductible in insurance matters, which is intended to strengthen the individual’s sense of responsibility.”
According to Schmidtbleicher-Lück, the argument against the maternity leave day is that it promotes presenteeism and that the person concerned could infect colleagues and prevent themselves from recovering quickly, which could result in longer periods of illness.
The introduction of a waiting day could also lead to a culture of mistrust, a loss of motivation and a declining identification with the employer – and this in turn could further exacerbate the consequences of the shortage of skilled workers. His summary: “Instead of financial sanctions, measures of healthy work through trust-based leadership are much more effective.”
Has sickness rates really increased?
Lots of discussions, but are they perhaps just part of a misguided debate? The proposal for waiting days is based on the assumption that sick leave in Germany has really increased disproportionately in recent years and is significantly higher than in other EU countries. However, according to various experts, neither is necessarily the case.
The number of sick days has actually increased in many places in recent years. But this can be explained to a considerable extent, on the one hand, by Corona and its offshoots and, on the other hand, by the introduction of the electrical incapacity for work certificate (eAU).
“This is largely a statistical effect,” recently explained Christopher Prinz, labor market expert at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Until 2021, insured people had to send sick notes to the health insurance companies themselves, which they often would not have done. Since January 2022, this transmission has been carried out electronically and directly by doctors’ practices and health insurance companies, which means that the survey is more complete and more cases of illness are counted.
Prinz also refutes with OECD figures that sickness rates in Germany are significantly higher than in other European countries. In France it was higher, in Belgium and Sweden at a similar level as in the Federal Republic. That doesn’t really suggest that the parental leave day is useful. In France there are three waiting days and people who are on sick leave receive 50 percent of their salary afterwards. In Sweden there is also a waiting day and 80 percent of the salary is paid.
Is there perhaps an alternative solution?
From a legal perspective, the introduction of a waiting day is not absolutely necessary. The current legal situation already gives employers options to pay employees less wages in the event of illness. This is done by reducing the statutory leave towards the first day of illness.
Kilian Friemel, specialist lawyer for labor law and partner at Taylor Wessing Germany, writes on Linkedin: “For example, in addition to the statutory vacation entitlement of 20 days, an additional 12 days of supra-statutory/contractual vacation are agreed. In total, this would then be 32 days of vacation per year. At the same time, it is agreed that up to, for example, 7 vacation days per year are reduced as a “waiting day” for the first day of incapacity for work.”
A possibility that is, however, fraught with risk. Anton Barrein, lawyer at activelaw Offenhausen.Wolter PartmbB, points out that “a reduction in special remuneration is only possible within small limits, which may have been exceeded here”.
Barrein refers to a ruling by the Rhineland-Palatinate Regional Court (LAG Rhineland-Palatinate, judgment of March 1, 2012 – 11 Sa 647/11): “According to § 4a EFZG (Editor’s note: Continued Payment of Wages Act), an agreement on the reduction of benefits that the employer provides in addition to current wages – special remuneration – is also for periods of Incapacity to work due to illness permitted.
However, for each day of incapacity to work due to illness, the reduction may not exceed a quarter of the annual average salary for one working day.” Barrein’s conclusion: “The underlying legal question is extremely complex. And one question is, of course, to what extent employees will accept such regulations or approach them with skepticism.”
There has been no longer a parental leave day in Germany since 1970
It currently seems unlikely that the legislature will minimize this risk and introduce a waiting day. Although there was no continued payment of wages for workers on the first day of illness in Germany until 1970 and between 1996 and 1998 only 80 instead of 100 percent of wages were paid during sick leave, any attempts to reintroduce the waiting day repeatedly failed.
Such a proposal was also made by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in 1993. “It was stipulated in Section 3 of the draft that one – or in the case of illness lasting several days, two – working days would be exempted from continued payment of wages. If the employee is sick more often, this exception should apply for a maximum of six working days per year,” says lawyer Barrein. However, this idea was not supported by a majority in parliament.
The article appeared on January 7, 2025 and was last updated on April 13, 2026.
Lena Onderka is editorially responsible for the Employee Experience & Retention area – which also includes, for example, the topics of BGM and employee surveys. She also looks after the topic of diversity. She is also the editorial contact for the German Human Resources Summit and the HR Forum Banking.
