What does a sick day cost the economy? The BAuA figures for 2024
BAuA 2024: €152 lost production and €258 lost gross value added per sick day.
BAuA values sickness absence in two figures. Lost production, valued at labour cost, is €152 per sick day in 2024. Lost gross value added, valued at labour productivity, is €258 per sick day. The second already contains the first; they must not be added. Neither figure is a breakdown of what an individual employer pays. BAuA publishes no figure for direct employer cost per sick day.
Lost production per sick day (BAuA, economic cost of sickness absence, data year 2024)
Lost production per sick day
BAuA, data year 2024
Lost gross value added per sick day
BAuA, data year 2024
Lost production in total
BAuA, data year 2024
Lost gross value added in total
BAuA, data year 2024
Two figures that must not be added
BAuA values sickness absence in two figures. Lost production, valued at labour cost, comes to €134bn in 2024, or €152 per sick day. Lost gross value added, valued at labour productivity, comes to €227bn, or €258 per sick day. The gross-value-added figure already contains the production figure; the two must not be added. Mental and behavioural disorders account for €22.5bn and €38.0bn respectively.
Method and limits
- Reference: 42,283 thousand employees in Germany, projected from absence rates across 32.6m statutory insurance member years
- 881.5m sick days in total, at an average of 20.8 sick days per employed person
- Only medically certified sick notes are captured. BAuA itself notes that short-term absence is therefore understated
- For sector-level analyses the projection base is around 16.0m member years, not 32.6m
- Source: BAuA, economic cost of sickness absence 2024, tables 1 and 2, as of December 2025, retrieved 24 August 2026
Sources
- 1
Volkswirtschaftliche Kosten durch Arbeitsunfähigkeit 2024, Tabelle 1
Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin (BAuA), 2025
Stand Dezember 2025, Datenjahr 2024. Wörtlich: Produktionsausfall je Arbeitsunfähigkeitstag 152 €, Ausfall an Bruttowertschöpfung je Arbeitsunfähigkeitstag 258 €. Hochrechnung auf 42.283 Tsd. Arbeitnehmende im Inland anhand der AU-Raten aus 32,6 Mio. GKV-Mitgliedsjahren.
Quelle öffnen Abgerufen: 2026-08-24 - 2
Sicherheit und Gesundheit bei der Arbeit, Berichtsjahr 2024 (Unfallverhütungsbericht Arbeit), Abschnitt 1.7.2
BMAS und BAuA, 2025
Bundesbericht, keine Landesfassung. Tabellen 6 und 7 führen dieselben Werte wie das Faktenblatt. Die BAuA weist darauf hin, dass nur ärztlich gemeldete Krankschreibungen erfasst sind und Kurzzeit-Arbeitsunfähigkeit deshalb unterschätzt wird.
Quelle öffnen Abgerufen: 2026-08-24
We use deeplink-friendly originals. Charts are redrawn from the data - no 1:1 copies. For Statista data the underlying primary source (e.g. WIdO, AOK) is named explicitly.
Further reading
Related datasets
Sick days mental illness
342 · Sick days per 100 employees from mental illness (DAK Psychreport 2025, data year 2024)
Turnover costs
50–200 % · Replacement cost per employee as a share of annual salary (Gallup 2019)
Sickness rate 2024
5,80 % · Statutory health insurance sickness rate, annual average 2024 (Federal Ministry of Health, GKV statistics KM1)
Tools & guides
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