IW study: Companies pay record sum for sick employees
More than 85 billion euros: Never before have companies had to pay so much for continued payment of wages due to illness. What is behind this increase?
German companies spent a record 85.6 billion euros on continued pay during illness in 2025, according to a study by the Institute of German Economy (IW). This represents a more than doubling of the nominal costs over the past one and a half decades. The total includes 72.5 billion euros in gross wages and 13.1 billion euros in employer social security contributions.
The IW cites higher wages, increased employment, and a higher sickness rate as causes of the rise, with the sickness rate having statistically significantly increased since the introduction of electronic recording of incapacity certificates in 2022.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's report — not a translation of it. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
